


come on baby with me we're gonna fly away

by ourlovelybones



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Drama, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-15 19:43:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 44,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13620393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ourlovelybones/pseuds/ourlovelybones
Summary: “You’re Peter Pan. You’re literally Peter Pan.” The new, pretty boy blurts out with his eyes directly trained on Newt. Sonya bursts out cackling and he can hear Harriet and Minho chuckling good-naturedly beside him, which makes the new, pretty boy blush slightly.And because for some reason, Newt seems to be in the universe’s good favor right now, the new, pretty boy’s friend sits next to Sonya and Minho, leaving the only other empty seat next to him.|'you were my best four years' told from a different point of view; new memories, old memories from a new POV, and more x|





	1. "the whole bloody world was against newt"

**Author's Note:**

> i was going to wait to post this until tomorrow but since the cast wanted to go ahead and kill me tonight ,,, here ya go! hope you enjoy!

_(May)_

 

“What the bloody _fuck_!?”

Newt’s ears perked up at the sound of his twin sister cursing colorfully from downstairs in their Southwark home, the warm spring air breezing in through the windows. He was upstairs in his bedroom playing video games and ignoring his University acceptance packet on his wooden desk. Sonya was always known for being dramatic and loud but she never tended to curse in front of their parents - she always prided herself on being a "proper" lady.

He wasn’t sure if he was quite curious enough to heave himself off of his bed and eavesdrop from his door. For Sonya to curse so loudly in front of their mum, something entirely unbelievable must have happened. But he felt so comfortable on top of his duvet, with his hand stuck in the bowl of crisps right next to him, he was finding it hard to get up. Maybe he would hear about it later -

“Is this a bloody joke? This is some kind of joke, isn’t it? What _is_ this?!” Her shrill voice kept crescendoing up the stairs.

Newt paused his game.

It was only 17:00 and dad wouldn’t be home until after supper. He could hear their mum trying to talk to Sonya but something wasn’t adding up. Sonya was yelling hysterically at this point, but he couldn’t hear mum fighting back with her.

He sat up on the bed. _Mum must have decided Sonya couldn’t get her naval pierced and now Sonya’s acting like a twat about it._

“How could you?” Sonya’s voice was almost wailing. “You lied to us for eighteen years! Why would you do something like that, how could you never think we would find out?”

Clearly, this was more than a naval piercing gone awry.

Newt finally got up off of his bed and crept towards the door. If Sonya didn’t calm down, the neighbours next door might start calling the police.

Mum’s voice sounded calm and pleading, but Newt couldn’t hear a word she was saying. _Eighteen_ _years_? _What could she have possibly lied about for eighteen years that made Sonya so upset?_

He was just about to pull open the knob on his door when he heard Sonya’s loud footsteps stomping up the flight of stairs, his sister cursing as angrily as she could. By the time she reached the top, her eyes were puffy and her nose was red. Sonya cried easily, but this was the kind of heartbreak he hadn’t seen since her last bloke dumped her at Christmas Ball. Her skin was splotchy and pale and her hands were shaking from being clenched so tightly at her sides.

He didn’t even register their mum coming up the stairs behind her, pleading his name. He only saw his twin sister in pain.

“What’s wrong?” He asked her quietly. He kept his eyes trained on hers instead of looking at their mother, who tried desperately to get his attention. 

Sonya suddenly leaned forward and threw her arms around him, crying snot-filled tears onto his shoulders. He simply rubbed her back. 

“They lied to us. You’re not my twin, Newt, you never were. You’re three months younger than me and that’s why there aren’t pictures of the both of us at the hospital the day we were born. Your real birthday was almost two weeks ago, on the 16th of May, and your real mum is some whore named Bridget Skylark.”

 

I.

 

He spent the night on top of the roof. 

The roof that overlooked the garden where he and Sonya used to play as children, scooping up piles of mud in their hands and throwing it at each other. They used to wear their bathing suits out on the really hot days and squeal as their parents sprayed them with the hose and the cold water hitting their skin.

Well, Sonya’s _parents._ Sonya’s mum and Sonya’s dad - the bastard who sired them both.

Jane cried as she told them the truth before supper. She and their father were childhood sweethearts, married right after they graduated from their American university. They ended up coming back to London after a couple of years, once Charles had gotten a higher-paying job back at home. They were leaving their friends behind but trying to start a new future for them and for a family. Except it was hard making ends meet at first and they still had to stay in the basement of her parents’ flat. When he found out she was pregnant and they still had no car to drive to work in, he had gone out to the bar where he met some woman named Bridget Skylark. Bridget Skylark had been a classmate of theirs back in grade school and apparently she’d gotten rather pretty after university.

Jane reached across the table and grabbed Newt’s hands. “When you were born, I immediately loved you the moment I first held you in my arms, Isaac. You are my son - you always have been and you always will be. You and your sister have been the happiest blessings of our lives. I could not be more ashamed of what we have done. And I can not ever take it back, to spare you this pain, but I can do better in our future. I will love you just as much as I always have.”

He wanted to get angry like Sonya was, but even her resolve was fading. She sighed deeply and blew her nose with a Kleenex. She met his gaze and tried for a small, cracked smile. “You’re still my brother and a blithering idiot.”

_I love you too, Sonya._

“Could you spare me that bottle of wine we were going to have with supper? I have a bit of a headache.”

He stayed up on the roof that night, after his father came home to the shitshow that has invaded his home. Sonya refused to speak to him and went over to her friend Elizabeth Bennett’s flat, kindly extending an invite to Newt.

Newt would rather poke his own eyes out than spend an evening with Elizabeth Bennett and he made sure to let her know that. 

He wished that Minho were here, his good best friend from Nevada. They’d been friends all their lives because their mums were friends from University. Minho always knew the right things to say when Newt’s head got too quiet. 

He had sent him an email about an hour ago and kept checking his inbox obsessively, despite the time difference between London and Nevada.

_Minho -_

_Hey mate. You alright? Did you finally graduate yet? If so, you should come by London for a fortnight. Apparently Jane’s not my mum - she’s Sonya’s mum, but she’s not my mum. Charles fancied the idea of raising us as bloody twins even though we were born apparently three months apart._

_You confused yet? Yeah. Me too._

_Anyways, Sonya’s spending the night with her friend who I can’t stand. Remember when Harriet went through that One Direction phase? She’s even worse than that._

_Send my love to your family,_

_Newt._

Jane asked him to come down from the roof multiple times - _you could seriously hurt yourself, Newt! Please come down and we can talk about this with your father!_ \- but Newt liked this feeling. Of being on top of the world. No one could reach him while he was up here because for once in his life, he was invincible.

Minho’s email came about an hour after he had finally come down from the roof and settled himself into his bed.

_Already booked my flight. See you tomorrow night. I’m a poet and guess what - I didn’t even know it._

_I would say send my love to your family, but that seems a bit complicated now. Send my love to your friends - the friends you make at Glade University who someday will turn into be your family._

_Minho._

 

II.

 

Minho’s plane was late.

Sonya refused to come home from Elizabeth Bennett’s and Harriet was her designated shoulder to cry on.

For some reason, he thought it would be a fantastic idea to reach out to Bridget Skylark and see how she’d been doing these past eighteen years. The entire encounter was so bloody awkward, Newt nearly snapped and asked her how someone so plain and dull and boring had caught the attention of his father enough to make a child. 

The whole world was against Newt.

He was back up on his roof again, kicking his feet against the exterior of their home. He had brought up a few cans of beer next to him and casually drank them one after the other after the other as he stared up at the stars. _That star is for Minho. That star is for Sonya. That star can be for Harriet. That star can be for Jack, that star can be for Ava, and that star can be for Bella._

_But, this star can be for you. The second star to the right and straight on til morning. Whoever you are, wherever you are, you must be there somewhere. You’re out there waiting for me to find you._

There were warning signs that Newt was a little bit intoxicated. He didn’t really like getting drunk but when he did, he was a lightweight and suddenly thought he could do anything. For once in his life, he could be invincible.

That was right - he could do anything! He could fly!

Wobbling a bit back and forth, he stood up on the roof and laughed to himself. _I can fly to you! Wherever you are!_

It was late at night, thankfully, and he could fly right out of this little town in London to wherever his heart desired. He leaned back on his right leg, to gain some momentum, and before he could second-guess himself, he jumped off the roof of his home, ready to fly.

Except, he landed on the allotment in front of his family’s home, bloody hard on his ankle.

It was too painful to move at first. So, he laid there on the ground, his cheek pressed against the grass and cursing as even the alcohol couldn't numb the pain.

The whole bloody world was against Newt.

“What the fuck?” He heard Minho’s voice, some long eternities later. Suddenly, his friend was kneeling by his side, with his hand pressed against Newt’s head. “Hey buddy, you alright? What happened?”

Newt didn’t quite feel like explaining what had happened. He just sighed and let Minho help him up, lean his weight on him, and get him inside the house. Jane and Charles were already sleeping upstairs, blissfully unaware of the events that just took place. Without words, Minho got Newt some pain medicine and an ice pack, wrapping a bandage around the swollen ankle.

Minho dragged his suitcase inside and up the flight of stairs to Newt’s room, where he hobbled up after him. When he had made it to the top, Minho had already set up their favorite video games on his TV.

“So.” He said as Newt finally got himself situated onto his bed. “What do you want to do from here?”

Newt was quiet for a moment as they let the game load and chose their characters. “We tell people it was an accident. Because it was.”

“We can do that.”

Newt gave him a small, grateful smile. “Thanks buddy.”

“Don’t mention it, buddy.”

 

_(September)_

 

“We should go to a party.”

Newt raises his eyebrow, unceremoniously stabbing at his breakfast. “What?”

They’re in the dining hall, feasting on a luxurious breakfast of soggy toast and poached eggs and orange juice with too much pulp in it. The gang had all arrived to Glade University about a week ago and had been getting used to settling into campus before classes started in a couple of days. Sonya and Harriet were supposed to be meeting them soon, to start celebrating Harriet’s birthday that day, but the two girls were nowhere to be found.

“It’s Harriet’s birthday - we should do something fun and special with her.” Minho says, happily chewing his soggy toast. “And we’re in college now! We can do whatever the fuck we want, isn’t it great?”

“Sure.” Newt says without much enthusiasm.

“So we’ll pregame around 7? 8? Then we’ll head over to some awesome party around 9 where we’ll get shitfaced and meet some nice, pretty girls.”

“I take it your break-up with Suzy is very much final?” Newt asks, trying to hide his own disappointment.

In the entire four years Minho and Suzy were together, Newt had gotten a chance to meet her a few times and thought she was a wonderful person. When Sonya and Newt went to Nevada back in junior year, she had invited them all over to her house as if they’d been friends with her for centuries instead of Minho and baked them cookies. Everyone thought they were going to get married and be together forever - they laughed at all the same ridiculous jokes, they loved the same movies, they both liked waking up early and going for a run when the sun hadn’t even come out yet.

No one was more surprised than Newt when Suzy broke things off half-way through summer, claiming, “I think it’s time for us to move on, Minho.” 

Minho rolls his eyes and chugs his pulpy orange juice. “She wants these next four years to ‘find herself.’ She thinks that we shouldn’t be this serious when we’re so young because we have the rest of our lives to become serious. She says right now is the only time we’ll have to be young and carefree so we should take advantage of that. And you know what? If she’s willing to throw away the past four years of our lives together - to sleep with other people - then so can I.”

Newt tries to remain semi-optimistic. “Maybe in four years, you’ll find your way back to each other again.”

“I doubt it. Anyways, where are the girls? I thought we were celebrating Harriet’s birthday all day together?”

 

III.

 

Later that night, after the girls have finally caught up with them and they get celebratory milkshakes for the birthday girl, Minho ends up finding a party for them all to go to in the woods and a guy who makes fake I.Ds.

“Eighty dollars?” Sonya scrunches her face as they’re trudging through the woods after a taxi’s just dropped them off. “For an ID? My real license didn’t even cost this much money!”

“Yeah, what the hell? It’s not like any of us have jobs, how are we just going to drop eighty dollars on a fake ID?” Harriet says, ducking under branches.

“It’s an investment!” Minho protests with pink, intoxicated cheeks. “Think of all the alcohol we’ll be able to buy ourselves without having to go through an upperclassmen and then _pay them_ extra on top of that. We’ll be able to go into all the bars we want to, get drinks at dinner when we feel like going out. It seems like a lot of money, but in the end it’ll actually end up saving us money.”

Newt had been taking smaller sips of the vodka as it was passed around back in Sonya and Harriet’s dorm, but his lightweight status is starting to kick in. He giggles, “I’m in.”

Sonya rolls her eyes as they continue following the trail of littered beer cans and loud noise. “Well, I didn’t say I wasn’t going to do it. It just seems like a lot of money.”

“If Sonya’s in, I’m in.” Harriet decides reluctantly and curses under her breath. “Do we even know who’s hosting this party?”

“Some kid on our floor. Aris, I think.” Minho tells her as he pulls out his phone to find the texts. “He’s a cool shank.”

“A cool what?” Harriet frowns.

“Shank.” Newt repeats helpfully. “Us boys in Hall A came up with it to use about our friends.”

“You're such losers. God, we’re really gonna need a mate with a car.” Sonya groans. “We’ve been walking for ages - are we almost there yet?”

Newt’s definitely feeling the walk. His right ankle is beginning to ache painfully and he can’t hide the limp anymore.

“What’s wrong with you?” Harriet asks, falling into step with him. Minho and Sonya keep walking up ahead, complaining about whether or not it’s really worth it to go all this way in the woods for such a party. “And don’t say it’s nothing because I know when you’re lying.”

He tries to brush it off casually by walking slower and putting less strain on his bad ankle. “Just a sore ankle. That’s all.”

Harriet doesn’t look very convinced but thankfully she doesn’t push it. “Listen, I haven’t really gotten a chance to talk to you about the whole parent betrayal thing yet because I’ve been trying to be there for Sonya. But I just wanted you to know that you’re my friend too and you’ll always be my friend, so that means if you ever just need to talk about it - I’ll be here to listen. Okay?”

He gives her a grateful, half-smile. “It’s your birthday, Harriet. We should be celebrating you, not mourning the past.”

“I know, but -“

“Hey look we’re finally here!” Sonya unknowingly interrupts and reaches for her friend’s hand. “There’s a cute bloke over there by the bonfire, he can be your birthday present!”

“If you ever want me to get you a cute bloke for your birthday present, just let me know.” Minho tells him as they hang back and look for people they recognize from their floor. 

“I’ll keep that in mind, mate. And if you ever want _me_ to get _you_ a cute bloke for your birthday, just know that it’s not going to happen.”

“You are so selfish.”

Newt just winks at him, his cheeks bright and rosy pink. 

They push past drunken teenagers hooking up dangerously close to the bonfire, stealing unopened beer cans where they can find them. Newt _knows_ he’s a lightweight, but he’s having a lot more fun than he’s had all summer. He’s finally with his three best friends in the world - even if one of them happens to be his gross not-twin sister - at one of those American college frat parties they always used to see on the telly and life isn’t very much perfect, but life doesn’t very much suck right now.

He gets drunk again for the first time since “the accident” as he and Minho call it. He takes shots with the other guys on his floor - a “bonding activity” as one of them called it - and gives any guy that starts flirting with his sister the evil eye. They convince everyone at the party to start singing happy birthday to Harriet, even though there’s no birthday cake for her or anyone that actually knows her name besides the three of them.

It’s worth it to see the smile brightening her face as they all chant, _Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear - wait, who are we singing to? Oh - happy birthday dear Harry! Happy birthday to you!_

Soon after, Minho starts dancing with a girl who has bright blue hair, bright blue eyes, and a bright blue tank top, each of them taking shots when the other one trips or stumbles over themselves.

“I really think she might be the one,” Newt thinks Minho whispers to him sometime before the night’s over.

“You should marry her.” Newt thinks he says back because it seems like such a great idea at this moment in time. They’re young and happy and both of them have great hair so it seems like a match made in heaven, if you ask Newt.

The rest of them start dancing with another trio of kids, of whom Newt thinks he might have met at the dining hall sometime or another, but his ankle begins to hurt again. He slowly limps away from the rest of the group by the bonfire to a more secluded area where he can rest his ankle in the dark. The fire is a small light in a thick clearing of trees. The moon casts a light in their shadows, creating an eery and haunting atmosphere that’s broken up by the loud hip-hop music and alcohol spraying everywhere. 

Suddenly, Harriet’s plopped down next to him on his log, glowing bright from intoxication. “Hi.”

“Happy birthday.”

“Thanks, friend. Did you break your ankle or something?” She juts her chin out at his swollen right ankle which still hasn’t quite healed and takes a large swig of her beer. “And don’t think about lying to me. I can always tell when you lie.”

Newt rolls his eyes this time, leaning back on his arms and letting his head roll around. “No you can’t.”

“Yes I can.” Another swig of beer.

 _Have her eyes always been this pretty under the stars?_ “No you can’t.”

“Yes,” Harriet says slowly, taking another swig and licking her lips. She leans in closer to Newt. “I. Can.”

 _Has she always smelled this good? Like vanilla perfume, the kind his mother likes to wear when they go to Church on Christmas and Easter?_ “Try me.”

“Okay then.” She whispers, as the world around them begins to disappear. “Right now, you want to kiss me. True or false?”

 _This could be such a bad idea,_ Newt thinks silently. _She’s my sister’s best friend - fuck’s sake, she’s my bloody best friend too._

He still finds himself, though, leaning in and cupping his hand around her cheek before suddenly pressing their lips together. If he were sober, he’d probably giggle at the predicament of passionately snogging his best friend since forever in the woods, but this is fun, he thinks. She’s good at this, he thinks, as she leans into him, slowly crawling into his lap.

But they both drunkenly underestimate how drunk they really are and ended up falling backwards onto the twigs and branches and dead leaves behind them. They pull apart for two seconds, look each other in the eyes before they start giggling like children.

“I can’t believe we just did that.” Harriet laughs, covering her eyes with her hand. 

Newt sees the world in so much color when he’s drunk, he wonders why he doesn’t do this more often. Everything is louder, funnier, better, and clearer when he’s drunk. He reaches for her hand and even surprises himself at the words that come falling out of his mouth next, “Wanna do it again?”

 

IV.

 

The next morning, as he wakes up with a dry mouth and pounding headache, he begins to remember just _why_ he hates getting drunk.

Every morning after is always the same, the hangover is always dreadful and horrendous. But he’s never woken up in the same bed as someone else before - and he’s definitely never woken up _naked_ in the same bed as someone else before too.

He quickly shoots out from under the covers, reaching for his clothes as quickly as he can pick them up from off of the floor. Ignoring the terrible pain in his head and in his stomach, he dresses himself as fast as he can while the memories from last night came flooding back to him.

_Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear - wait, who are we singing to? Oh - happy birthday dear Harry! Happy birthday to you!_

Oh, bloody hell.

 _Harriet_ begins to shuffle under the covers just as he’s zipping up his pants from last night. She emerges from her blankets, frowning at the offensive sunlight coming in through her windows. “Newt? What are you -“

Her eyes widen and she gasps, once she seems to realize what they must have done and she dives back under the covers. “Oh my God.”

He looks around the room and finds a spare shirt that must have been thrown about sometime in the past week she and Sonya have inhabited the dorm. He picks it up off of the floor and gently lays it on top of the blankets she’s under and looks away out of respect. “I, uh, I think I found a shirt of yours. Or maybe my sister’s.”

He hears her shuffling again under the covers and wonders if her hangover is even half as bad as his. He doesn’t remember getting so pissed drunk the night before and vows to never go to another party again in his university career that involves alcohol if it means feeling like he'd been run over by a truck the next morning.

“You can look now.” She says a bit shyly, pushing some strands of her curly hair behind her ear as she sits back against her bed. “Although, I’m guessing -“

“We probably did.” He finishes her sentence for her, unable to quite look her in the eye. “It must have been by the grace of God that Sonya wasn’t here.”

Harriet chuckles lightly. “Or Minho. He’d probably try and wake us up by dumping buckets of cold water on our heads.”

This brings a genuine laugh out of Newt. “Are you mad? He’d scream at us through one of those megaphones you see in movies and tell us to run forty laps around the field.”

“It’s our scared duty to make sure Minho _never_ has one of those things - or a whistle! - near him. At any cost.” Harriet say as they laugh at the thought of Minho holding a megaphone and barking orders at them on a track field. It hurts like hell to laugh right now, his stomach and his head aching to go back to bed where it’s dark and warm and quiet forever, but he can’t bring himself to stop.

“Although, my sister might have been worse.” Newt murmurs, fully aware he’s stalling at this point. 

“She’d probably take pictures.” 

“She’s such a creep.”

“No, she’s just devious. She could use those for blackmail in the future.”

And _there_ it was - the elephant in the room. The impending _where do we go from here?_ conversation that neither of them quite knew how to start.

It’s the day after her _birthday_ , he chastises himself. He can’t bloody well have sex with one of his best friends the night of her birthday and then leave the next day without acknowledging it. He should take her out on a nice and proper date, like his mum - like _Jane_ \- taught him any gentlemen should do when he fancies someone. Out to dinner at a nice fancy restaurant she might like where they could order bread and champagne for appetizers - oh wait, they were in the wretched States now and weren’t technically _legal_ to drink here - but he could think of something nice for her.

It could even be his belated birthday present to her.

“Do you want to go out with me?” He quickly asks, hiding his fidgeting hands behind his back.

Harriet blinks in surprise. “Like be your girlfriend?”

This time Newt blinks in surprise. He’d never been in a real relationship before - never really cared for one. He’s kissed a few boys and girls here and there but none of them ever meant anything in the end, they were just ways to pass the time at parties. He spent much more of his time at home on Friday nights painting in his bedroom, listening to Minho talk about Suzy and their big plans for life after college in Hawaii, writing in his journal about superheroes and dragons. He doesn’t know if he’d be any good at being a boyfriend - bloody hell, he doesn’t even know the first thing to _do._

“Yes.” He says simply, because answering her question is probably the first thing a good boyfriend would probably do.

He watches a small smile bloom over her face and okay, maybe having one of your best friends in the whole world be your first girlfriend wouldn’t be such a bad way to learn the ropes after all.

“Okay.” She says, taking a step toward him in just her baggy tee-shirt. “I’d like that.”

For the first time since the end of May, when she kisses him again, this time without any alcohol flooding through their veins, Newt doesn’t quite feel like the world is against him so much.

 

V.

 

“I can’t believe you all have the same class with the same professor at the same time without me.” Newt complains the Monday when classes start, as they’re all gathered around a table for lunch in the dining hall. 

“I still can’t believe you two are a thing.” Minho says, pointing between Newt and Harriet from across the table with his soup spoon. “All I remember from Harriet’s birthday party -“

“It wasn’t even my birthday party!”

“- is this blue-haired girl trying to outdrink me, which we all know she lost. And apparently Blondie here took it upon herself to start singing campfire songs that would scare away the raccoons.”

“I did not!” Sonya protests with a heavy blush. “I would never do something that embarrassing in public.”

“Says the same girl who peed her pants at Disney World when we were eight?”

“Newt!” Sonya exclaims mortified, throwing her half-empty bottle of water at him. “I can’t believe you said that!”

“Oh relax, we’re all family here.” Newt waves her off dismissively, as Harriet smiles at him and pats his good left leg. _He’s already doing a good job as a boyfriend, he could get used to this._ “I’m just saying it wouldn’t be unlike you to do something terribly embarrassing in public.”

Sonya rolls her eyes and ignores Minho and Harriet’s snickers. “I did _not_ pee my pants at Disney World. You’re such a wanker.”

“You’re such a -“

“Hey. This is Teresa.”

They all look up to see two other kids coming over to their table, a boy and a girl with brown hair and fair, sandy skin. The girl has striking blue eyes, but Newt’s more taken aback by the pretty boy standing next to her, staring right back at him.

“Thomas! Glad you came. Nice to meet you, Teresa. That’s Sonya and Harriet, whom Thomas met earlier today,” Newt vaguely hears Minho introducing his friends, “and that’s my pal, Newt.”

“You’re Peter Pan. You’re literally Peter Pan.” The new, pretty boy blurts out with his eyes directly trained on Newt. Sonya bursts out cackling and he can hear Harriet and Minho chuckling good-naturedly beside him, which makes the new, pretty boy blush slightly.

And because for some reason, Newt seems to be in the universe’s good favor right now, the new, pretty boy’s friend sits next to Sonya and Minho, leaving the only other empty seat next to _him_.

“To be honest, mate, that’s quite the compliment.” Newt tells him in a low voice and maybe - just _maybe -_ he’d be lying if he said the new, pretty boy’s grin didn’t make his heart soar just the teeniest, tiniest of bits.

He’s about to sigh in contentment and go around calling dibs on new, pretty boy (as long as he’s not completely straight, of course) before anyone else can when he turns next to him and sees Harriet innocently smiling, patting his good leg again. She looks happy to see the new, pretty boy here with his friend, waving to them as they sit down.

Newt snaps himself out of it and swallows back his momentary lapse of judgment.  _He is most certainly not his father._

“Are you -“

“And Sonya related? She’s my half-sister, believe it or not, the details of which are too messy to delve into at this present moment in time.” _Bring yourself back to reality, bring yourself back to reality, bring yourself back to reality._

He smirks, because even though the situation is still far too fresh to joke about, it keeps him distracted from having to think about the potential problems on either side of him: “I still choose not to believe it.”

“He’s just jealous I’m the prettier one.” Sonya insists, relief flooding into her voice.

“I have nothing to be jealous of.” He says, pretending to flip his non-existent long hair over his shoulder. “Do I, Harriet?”

She snorts but squeezes his thigh under the able. “As if I’m getting into this. Girls, girls, you’re both pretty.”

“I think we all know who the prettiest person here is.” Minho cuts into the conversation with his hands held up. “Me.”

“Or your ego.” New, pretty boy - _Thomas_ \- quips with a cocky grin.

_Oh shit, he’s funny_ _too_ _._

Minho pretends to sniff in offense. “I see how it is, Thomas. I save your ass and then you insult my looks. Peasant.”

Newt frowns. “Saved his arse?”

“Gally.” Harriet rolls her eyes. “All you need to know.”

The same wanker Minho was complaining about the previous week during move-in who carelessly left crisps crumbs all over the common room floor for mice to start cleaning up at night. He and Minho got into a bit of a heated argument over whose fault that really was and were nearly ordered to be moved into separate dorms unless they could calm down.

“Who’s Gally?” Thomas’s friend asks in a quiet voice.

“Major slinthead.” Minho says, ironically using one of the words he, Gally, and the other boys of Hall A came up with over the course of move-in week. “Tried to knock the living daylights out of Thomas here.”

Newt can’t help himself. He turns to Thomas and reaches for his head, to make sure there aren’t any invisible bruises anywhere. “You alright?”

“I thought he was a goner.” Harriet mentions. “I mean, you literally _flew_ backwards.”

“He’s a tough shank. Do you play any sports?” Minho asks, looking impressed at Thomas’s ability to stay in one piece after being thrown across a classroom like a javelin.

“I just ran track in high school.”

“Oh Tom’s being modest,” His friend cuts in and _oh_. Newt sees the pride on her face, the way her bright blue eyes soften when she looks at _Tom._ “He was the fastest in our district and won first place all four years for regional competitions. He even qualified for nationals -“

“Thanks, Teresa.” Thomas cuts her off, while his cheeks turn ruby red.

“Oh, boys! They either downplay their achievements or rub it in your face to hook up with you.” Sonya rolls her eyes. But the way she’s looking at Thomas, too, almost like he’s her childhood hero, lets Newt know he and Teresa aren’t the only ones who appreciate how pretty he is. “That’s awesome, Thomas! You _should_ be boasting about it.”

“You should join the track team.” Minho tells him.

“You’d be a great fit! But as much fun as this conversation is, I have to leave.” Harriet stands up next to him, looking to him. “Are you coming?”

He already knows what his answer is - he just can’t look too desperate to get away from new, pretty boy - bloody hell, _Thomas_. “Depends on where you’re going.”

“I left something in my dorm.”

Newt ignores his sister and Minho’s snickers as he stands up to join her. “Might as well. Cheers, mates. Bye Thomas and Teresa, happy to meet you!”

He intertwines his fingers with Harriet’s as they walk out of the dining hall and into the bright, sunny afternoon. She starts telling him about her morning class with Janson, Minho, Sonya, and Thomas, and that giant kid Gally who’d been giving them grief, mindlessly swinging their arms back and forth.

Being her boyfriend isn’t that much different from being her best friend. They just snog more now that they’re a couple and occasionally do silly things like holding hands as they walk back to her dorm or send each other texts in the morning. He doesn’t understand how his father could have messed this up - if this is even close to what he had with Jane. This is comfortable and easy. He could get used to doing this, just swinging his hand back and forth with Harriet and smiling at her pretty face.

He thinks of Jane, who must be preparing supper for an empty house right about this time, thinks of the silly classical music she would be playing on the radio as she danced about the kitchen. He halts in the middle of his tracks, causing Harriet to come to a stop too.

“What’s wrong?” She asks.

“Can I meet at your dorm? There’s just something I have to do real quick.”

She nods her head and he kisses her on the cheek before she goes, like he’s done this all his life. _This is so easy - don't you dare mess this up._  

She smiles before heading off in the direction of Hall B.

Standing in the middle of the giant quad on campus, he pulls out his phone and rings his home number, waiting for her to pick up. “Hello?” Her voice comes through the phone - like he suspected, silly classical music playing in the background.

“Hi, mum.”


	2. standing alone in a crowded room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Minho’s throwing a wild party.” Newt tells him, when the waiter comes back with their burgers and milkshakes. “You’re all invited. Except for the blonde demon next to me.”
> 
> Sonya rolls her eyes but before she can say anything, Teresa asks, “A wild party? Here on campus?”
> 
> Newt nods, swirling his fry in his drink. “Apparently back in high school, he used to throw them once a month.
> 
> {september}

The Glade University campus isn’t exactly big but Newt still finds himself getting lost after his morning classes a month after school has started. 

His lessons usually finish before the rest of his friends’ and to pass the time until they’re freed from Advanced Calculus with Janson, he wanders around campus trying to get used to being so far away from home. He could spend the time in the library, doing his homework, or talking to some of his new classmates, but he likes the peacefulness of walking around alone and being alone - since most of the time, he's attached to his roommate, his sister, or his girlfriend.

One Wednesday morning, while his friends are still in their classes, he wanders as far as the American football field - - completely unaware that the school even _has_ a football field. There are no yard lines on the turf, instead there are lazily drawn chalk lines that resemble more of a maze than anything. Newt's not very familiar with the concept of American football, but he's sure it isn't supposed to look like  _this_.

He hadn’t meant to come out quite this far - he doesn’t care for sports, especially not American ones that cause such an uproar in close-by cities where people are turning cars over in the streets and acting like general morons - but he’s feeling more lost than usual. 

He just wants to slump down on the grass and stare at the sky, hoping he might find a sign that to motivate him to start on his homework or do something productive with his time. Instead, he notices two boys laughing loudly in front of him on the metal bleachers. One of them has noticed him by this point, a shorter, dark-skinned boy with muscles that might very well be the size of Newt’s head.

“Hey! Come over here!” 

Newt’s not much of a social person. He didn’t have a terrible amount of friends back home because Sonya is convinced he doesn’t "put himself out there enough," and he's just not interested in the same things they like. On the other hand, he thinks Sonya puts herself out there too much - always tweeting about whatever comes across her mind at any given moment and posting pictures on Instagram nearly everyday of herself and her friends. He’s not particularly inclined to go over and say hi, especially once he realizes that it’s _Gally_ sitting next to the other guy who’s waving him over.

_Major slinthead. Tried to knock the living daylights out of Thomas here._

His feet drag him reluctantly to the two boys sitting by the bleachers, smoking. “Uh, hello.”

“Hi. I’ve seen you around Hall A before, haven’t I? I’m Alby.” Alby introduces himself, holding out his hand for Newt to shake, with an extra joint between his fingers.

Newt prefers cigarettes but takes the joint gingerly. “Uh, thanks. I’m Newt.”

“Gally.” The taller boy merely nods his head, not paying Newt much attention now that something's caught his eye on his phone.  

“What are you up to, Newt?” Alby asks. “You look lost as hell. You a freshman?”

Newt hesitates, before taking a tiny drag. “Yeah, I got here about a fortnight ago. I’m just waiting for my friends to finish their classes.” He takes another hit before adding with a small smirk, “I think my friend Thomas should be done soon.”

Alby looks indifferent to the name, but Gally’s shoulders tense and he rolls eyes his dramatically. “You’re friends with that slinthead?”

Newt nods proudly, despite having only known the brown-haired boy for almost three weeks now. “One of the best guys I know,” he boasts, again wishing the joint between his fingers was a cigarette. “You know he plays track? He got a special scholarship from the University because he’s bloody brilliant.”

Alby looks at Newt with a knowing smile. “Sounds like you really like him.”

Newt has the decency to blush a little. _Talk about Harriet, talk about Harriet, talk about Harriet -_

“That shank spilled his entire cup of coffee all over my back.” Gally mutters, rolling his eyes again. “Imagine a cup of scorching hot coffee spilling down your back, Alby, it was fucking ridiculous. I had to walk around the entire first day of classes with caffeine soaked all over my clothes. I smelled like a walking Starbucks for _hours_.”

“Well, he didn’t mean it.” Newt says quickly. “It was an accident.”

“Oh yeah, cause you were there -“

“He’s not a bad guy -“

“Says someone who’s practically head over heels for him, like I’m gonna trust _your_ opinion -“

“I have a girlfriend!”

“Hey, hey, hey.” Alby says calmly, raising his hands between the two. “It’s a beautiful day outside and we’re just having a nice chill time with each other, smoking some good weed we got from Winston. We’re grown men, fellas, we can be civil towards each other.”

Newt wants to say, _he started it!,_ but he just pretends he has a cigarette in his hand and he’s in his bedroom back in London, leaning out the window and watching the stars. It wouldn't hurt to have at least  _one_ friend who wasn't Minho.

“Want to hear a funny story?” Gally snorts a couple moments later. “A group of drunk seniors a few years back were almost ready to graduate and wanted to leave the ultimate senior prank before they were gone. That’s why the football field looks like a clusterfuck of lines instead of an actual football field.”

 

I.

 

“My dad’s a twat, too.” 

About an hour later, Newt’s much more relaxed than he was when he first came over. His head’s feeling a bit clearer and he’s leaning back against the bleachers with the boys, watching the clouds move across the blue sky. Alby’s just finished telling a story about the time his parents grounded him for going to an unsupervised party and took away his car for two weeks, forcing him to rely on public transportation.

“For eighteen years of our lives, he lied to my sister and me about us being twins.” Newt continues, not sure of why he’s telling Gally and Alby this - out of all people - but the story flows out of him easily, like he’s known these boys for years. “We shared the same birthday - February 3rd - until she found out we weren’t.”

Alby and Gally digest this news quietly, saving him the “Oh I’m sorry’s,” or the pitiful looks. He doesn’t want their pity - he just wants to be better than his father was. 

“I’m the biggest twat.” Gally says quietly.

Newt and Alby whip their heads to him. “What?”

“Junior year of high school I made friends with these awful guys in my class who did nothing but sell drugs and take drugs. There was no reason behind it - I wanted to be like them and make a lot of easy money. My kid brother, Chuck -“ Gally sits up, hunching into himself. He’s finished his joint and is kicking at a pebble under the bleachers. “My kid brother, Chuck, he was only a couple years younger than me. Always wanted to do whatever he saw me doing.”

 _Just like me and Sonya_ , Newt thinks silently to himself, remembering all the times Sonya would go running off with her own mates back in primary school and he’d trip over his own shoelaces, trying to follow her. 

 _There are some places Sonya’s going to go where you just can’t follow her, Isaac_. Jane had said to him sadly, back when he still went by his given name. 

“He got hooked onto heroin pretty quickly. Nothing was the same after that.” Gally murmurs. His words are coming out in fractured sentences and Newt thinks he’s holding back parts of the story, but he won’t call him out on it. Especially not when Alby’s looking equally as devastated and withdrawn from their livelier conversation earlier about getting a bulldog in Hall A. 

If you ask him later Newt would say vehemently it wasn’t pity. 

But he pulls out one of his favorite red licorice sticks his mother sent Sonya and him last week and hands the package over to Gally. “They stick too much to my teeth - but they’re bloody fantastic with a can of Coca-Cola and the Beatles on replay. Just a word of advice, that's all.”

 

II.

 

“But that’s why she was eliminated, I think.” Sonya rambles on about one of her favorite reality shows, that Newt has absolutely no interest in, about a week later. It’s a Tuesday afternoon and the weather is still beautiful and warm enough to spend the days outside, before going back to their rooms and procrastinating further on their homework.

He spots someone who looks familiar up ahead, walking out of the library. He’s got better eyesight than most of his family but he’s having trouble figuring out who she is.

“Does she look familiar to you?” Newt asks his sister, successfully cutting her off in the middle of her sentence.

It’s only when she turns her head and Newt can see her bright blue eyes and wavy brown hair better that it dawns on him.

“Teresa!” Sonya exclaims, waving her hand wildly in the air.

Teresa looks just as confused as Newt was moments ago, before waving back and smiling shyly. 

“Let’s go over and say hi.” Sonya decides, marching up to the poor girl but Newt recognizes that look. Her eyes were slightly wide with anxiousness and her body was tense. Two people whom she’s met _once_ were stampeding her way and now she has to make small talk with them because they’re friends with her best friend.

Even though she’s smiling, Newt can tell she’s not exactly enthusiastic to talk.

“How are you?” Sonya asks cheerfully, despite this. When they were younger and found him funny, their father used to joke that she could make conversation with the silverware at a dinner party and it would still be entertaining. 

“I just finished my homework.” Teresa says, clutching her books closer to her chest.

“You’re such a good student.” Sonya sighs. “I haven’t even started mine for this week. Harriet’s been binge-watching this medieval show - oh, she’s my roommate, you remember her, right? - and it’s got so much violence and sex and blood -“

“Is it Game of Thrones?” Teresa asks quickly. 

“Yes, precisely! Such a bloody horrid show, isn’t it?”

Teresa’s face falls, one indicative factor to Newt that ‘horrid’ hadn’t been the word Teresa quite had in mind for Game of Thrones.

“Well, I hope we’re not keeping you from going anywhere.” Newt says, trying to give her an easy way out.

“Oh yeah, I’m just going to meet Tom before we start driving home and get dinner, or something.” She says with a slightly relieved look in her eyes.

But then Sonya opens up her big mouth and suggests, “Wait, that’s perfect! Thomas and I were _just_ talking  yesterday during Advanced Calculus about how we should hang out outside of class more and I’m starving. There’s this diner across the street, you wanna try it? You should text him and have him meet us there.”

“Okay,” Teresa pushes her hair back behind her ear and pulls out her phone. “Um, want to head over there now? I think he’s on his way to the parking lot now but he won’t be too far behind us.”

Sonya dominates the conversation on the walk from the library to the diner, talking about the damn reality show she had been trying to get Newt interested in for ages and her own classes. She complains incessantly about their Advanced Calculus professor, who got the curse of having Sonya, Harriet, Minho, Thomas, and Gally and his goons all in one 50 minute morning lecture. The previous day, apparently, Harriet and Minho had been making bets about how far they could throw spit-wads at the back of Gally’s head form where they were sitting during the beginning of class.

“Until Thomas joined in and he spit his the farthest!” Sonya recalls, laughing so much as she tells the story, she can barely finish it. “And we all started laughing so hard, the Rat-Man kicked us out of class! Oh, it was so much fun. I wish you two were there.” 

They slide into the booths at the diner moments later, leaving their orders with the waiter at the front. Teresa keeps looking to the door and Sonya keeps talking their heads off, until Thomas finally comes through and spots them at a booth in the back.

Both his sister and Teresa look at him like the angels are singing from Heaven and he’s walking on water. Newt’s honestly surprised neither of them are drooling into the plate of fries they’ve ordered to hold themselves over while they waited for him.

“Hey, sorry to keep you guys waiting.” He says apologetically, sliding into the seat next to Teresa. “I got lost.”

Newt pulls out his phone, opening up his message thread with Harriet. 

_Are u busy later?_

“I was just about to tell Teresa and Newt about how my box of hair supplies _still_ hasn’t come from England.” Sonya complains.

Newt rolls his eyes in response. “And we were just about to not listen.” 

At least Thomas chuckles, despite Sonya swatting her menu at him. “Shut up, you twat. Like you have anything more interesting to say.”

“Anything’s more interesting than what you have to say, Sonya.”

“You barely even talk! How would you -“

“Do you guys have any plans for the weekend?” Thomas cuts in, before they can really get into their banter. Newt’s phone vibrates next to him, indicating he’s got a text from Harriet.

 _Homework :/ Come over and we can watch a movie after_ ❤️

“Minho’s throwing a wild party.” Newt tells him, when the waiter comes back with their burgers and milkshakes. “You’re all invited. Except for the blonde demon next to me.”

Sonya rolls her eyes but before she can say anything, Teresa asks, “A wild party? Here on campus?”

Newt nods, swirling his fry in his drink. “Apparently back in high school, he used to throw them once a month.”

 

IV.

 

Minho and Newt’s university dorm room is quite unequipped for throwing a “large, blow-out.”

“Just throw away the leftover pizza and there’ll be enough room for the beer in the fridge.” Minho throws orders at Newt, as if he’s a catering service he’s hired.

Newt cuts him a glare. “We just bought the pizza yesterday and you already want to throw it away?”

“The people are going to be here in two hours, you dumb shank! No one wants warm beer.”

Newt rolls his eyes and takes the pizza out of the fridge to stock up the multiple packs of beer Minho paid an upperclassmen to get for him. While Newt’s doing the busy work of stashing away their illegal alcohol and pushing all of their clothes under bed, his roommate’s in the corner of the dorm doing sit-ups.

“Why are you making me do all the work for _your_ party?” Newt complains after he’s finished shoving all of his textbooks and assignments into his closet. “I just wanted to have a nice and quiet Saturday night.”

Minho rolls his eyes and finally gets up. “We’re going to throw the best Halloween party on this campus.”

“Why?”

“Why the fuck not? It’s the best way to get laid, my friend. Although, it doesn’t seem like you have any problems in that department.” Minho says, his eyes narrowing in on the dark purple bruise forming on Newt’s neck.

He quickly hides it with his hand and turns to face the opposite corner of the room, where four packages of toilet paper are waiting to be hidden in the bathroom closet. “Is this all an elaborate Gatsby scheme to get Suzy back? Because I’m telling you mate, if she’s already found herself another bloke on Instagram, she’s really not worth it.”

“This is not about Suzy or trying to impress her with how much better I’m doing in college than she is.” Minho says, in a tone that informs Newt this is very much about trying to impress Suzy about how much better Minho is doing in college than she is. “Do you think we got enough solo cups?”

They had gone to the supermarket on campus earlier that morning and bought enough red solo cups to distribute across the entire United States, but Newt doesn’t mention this. He simply picks up the packages of toilet paper and takes them into the bathroom, calling over his shoulder, “Don’t forget about the ice before it melts. Put it in the freezer and if you _really_ have to - you can get rid of my pint of ice cream.”

Newt considers himself to be a generous friend, which is why instead of moaning and groaning for the rest of the afternoon, he helps Minho set up for his party. Once Minho’s satisfied that their room no longer looks like a pigsty, he takes a shower in their shared bathroom and starts shaving before the party starts.

Newt grabs a book and heads outside to the common room that’s down at the end of the catwalk. Since it’s a Saturday evening and mostly everyone in Hall A has better places to be than the common room, Newt has the entire orange-walled room to himself and the best pick of bean bag chairs.

He’s aware that Harriet and Sonya are coming over to the party earlier than the rest of the people invited to help set-up the music, but he’s already exhausted from the amount of social energy he’s had to put in today. First there was the upperclassmen Minho reached out to who bought the alcohol, then there was all the people at the supermarket when they were buying groceries, and then later tonight there would be all those people he didn’t know crowded around in his private space, drinking and doing unholy things near the pillow he slept on at night.

He’s not sure what it is that makes him so tired being around people. There have been multiple days this past September where he’s had trouble getting out of bed in the morning to drag himself to class, often asking Minho to bring him a soda when he came back to the room. His friend never said anything, but he could see the concern written in his eyes.   
Even Sonya seemed to be worried about this, no doubt having heard a more dramatic side of events from Harriet when he cancels on homework dates or dinner dates or dates that involve a lot of energy he just doesn’t seem to have at the moment. But thankfully, like Minho, she doesn’t say much about it and just brings him extra licorice from the packages their Mum sent over when she comes over to annoy him.

People start crowding around on the catwalk outside almost a half an hour later and he can hear the music thumping from his room. He manages to avoid all the commotion and people for two hours, reading his book on the soft and comfortable bean bag chair, until Harriet texts him. 

_Where are u?? Saved you a beer:)_

He hasn’t seen her in a couple days so he figures it’s probably in his best interest as a decent boyfriend to go make an appearance for a short while, before persuading her to go back to her much quieter dorm and watch a movie. He has to maneuver his way through the people standing outside, smoking and drinking in public - as if they aren’t underage and on a public university campus - before coming up to his room full of even more people his age making dumb decisions.

It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy a good drink or two - he much prefers cigarettes to pot. But he hates the idea of getting shit-faced in a crowded room where he’s being smashed against other people he barely knows, sweating through the pits of his jumper. He can hardly see the appeal of dancing and jumping around in the dark with these random strangers, beer sloshing everywhere out of the red cups and onto the floor which Newt already knows _he’s_ going to have to clean the next morning.

He hears the problem before he actually sees it.

“My problem is your presence here, Greenie.”

_Oh no._

“Back up, Gally, before I hurt you.”

_Oh_ _no_ _._

Newt swears that the room goes quiet before Gally starts cracking up and his “goons,”  as Harriet refers to them, snicker behind him. While Newt would gladly defend Thomas over Gally - the latter of the two _is_ a good five inches taller and has a lot more muscle on his body. Thomas’s chances don’t look quite so good, despite his stellar athletic skill. 

Newt makes eye contact with a familiar face. Alby’s looking back at him with a similar expression of _if we don’t fix this now, someone’s going to start swinging and break something valuable in here, that Minho’s going to get pissed about._

“Gally, lay off the shank. It wouldn’t kill you to be nice.” He says, putting his hand on Gally’s shoulder and trying to draw him back.

“This is Thomas,” Newt says, repeating the gesture on Thomas with both of his hands. “Thomas, Alby. Alby’s a sophomore, but he’s one of the best guys I’ve met so far.”

He shakes hands with Thomas, who’s still a bit dazed and buzzed from the events that just transpired, before leading a red-faced Gally away.

“I reckon you’ll want to get out of here?” He asks.

Thomas snorts. “Gladly.”

They make their way through the sweaty sea of people drinking and dancing before being blessed with cool, fresh air. In front of the line of dorm rooms, is a stone wall protecting the students from plummeting to their deaths. Newt leans against it, Thomas following suit.

Thomas, however, is clearly drunk and can barely keep himself from staggering outside. His eyes are glassy and his cheeks are tinted rosy pink from all the beer he’s consumed. Maybe it’s because he’s drunk that Newt develops a case of loose lips and starts divulging a secret he internally swore he’d always keep.

“When I first met Gally, I thought he was an asshole. The biggest of them all. I hated him for a little while.” 

Thomas raises his eyebrows with a dubious look. “And you don’t anymore?”

“Not after I found out what happened. Gally used to have a little brother named Chuck, whom he was very fond of. Chuck was three years younger than Gally, but always wanted to keep up with him. Gally had fallen into the wrong sort of crowd his third year, but managed to redeem himself his fourth year. Chuck, unfortunately, fell in that crowd too. All I know is that he died of a heroin overdose six months ago and Gally still hasn’t forgiven himself for it.”

Thomas stares out onto the campus below them silently for a moment. Newt still isn’t sure why he’s told him - it’s not his secret, it should’ve been Gally’s choice about who did and didn’t know - but after everything Gally’s put him through, Thomas deserves to know _something_.

“Do you feel bad for him?”

The question takes Newt off-guard. He’s officially met Gally only _once_ and it wasn’t like they became blood brothers after that. Newt hasn’t spoken to Gally since that first encounter and barely knows anything about the other boy, save for his name and his heart-breaking story about his little brother.

It’s worse because he isn’t drunk, like Thomas is. It feels worse when he says, “I don’t know him well enough to feel bad for him. If we were friends, certainly, I’d feel sorry for the lad.”

“I don’t want to feel like an asshole for being mad at him.” Thomas says quickly, turning to Newt with a far-away glance in his eyes. He’s still drunk, but he’s not wasted like all the other kids around them are. Thomas is coherent enough to have a casual conversation with him, that he’s sure the other boy will have forgotten about by the morning.

Newt shrugs. It feels worse because he isn’t drunk. “He did shove you across a classroom.”

Thomas blushes under the moonlight. “I, uh, might have provoked that.”

 _This is the first I’m hearing about this,_ Newt thinks to himself as he raises his eyebrow.

“I did say he has the eyebrows of Satan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so tired so i will fix/edit any typos tomorrow <3 hope you guys liked this. writing in this universe is always fun and i've drafted up until chapter 11(ish) from the first story. please let me know if there's anything you really wanna see and i'll try to make it work :)
> 
> i remember there were some comments about what the Ivy Trio did that got me so worked up -- thomas and dylan were hanging out TOGETHER in LA and ki hong had just posted a throwback photo of him and dylan. follow me on twitter for more info, idk how to link things cus i'm a grandma! wckdisaks! x
> 
> leave a comment if u liked it, hated it, leave kudos if u liked it, hated it - but hopefully u enjoyed it :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t you think it’s all happening too fast?” Newt suddenly blurts out, looking at Thomas for all the answers. Why did Sonya stop wanting me to hang out with her and her friends all those years ago? Why did she suddenly become interested in boys and lipstick and kissing when he was still waiting for her to come back home and play in the garden with him?
> 
> “Pardon?”
> 
> “This whole growing up thing. It’s all happening too fast.” Newt mutters, still looking at Thomas. “We’re in college, sharing beers, when it feels like just yesterday, Sonya and I were digging around in mud.”
> 
> {october: where newt looks 12, where harriett runs around in orange shorts and a tie-dye tank top, where sonya and newt have a small fight, and where thomas makes newt smile}

It’s almost 3pm by the time Newt has finally convinced himself to get out of bed.

He’s missed his two morning classes and is starting to run out of excused absences that won’t affect his grade at the end of the semester. He really did mean to go to his Psychology class - he even did the reading journal assignment for once - but he could barely wake up when his alarm clock rang and Minho had already left the dorm. He kept hitting snooze for another fifteen minutes, then another fifteen minutes, then another fifteen minutes, before he finally accepted that he was not going to class that morning.

He even planned to go get lunch in the dining hall with Alby but he had to cancel those plans when it was clear by 12:30 that his bones felt too heavy to move. By 15:00, his hunger was outweighing his unexplainable exhaustion and he finally took a shower, feeling slightly better.

He had a few texts from Harriet, wondering where he was and asking if he was planning on coming to dinner with the rest of them. While he was in the shower, she had apparently called him and left a voicemail saying that they were in their Advanced Calculus class and he should meet up with him before they headed to a new restaurant they'd been wanting to try. 

Newt hates hearing about their Advanced Calculus class and feeling extraordinarily left out of all the inside jokes, pranks on Gally, and banter about Rat-Man. So far in the past four weeks that University has been in session, his four favourite friends had become infamous for getting kicked out of that class and going to Starbucks to gossip and pretend to do homework. There are times when Newt doesn’t have his own classes and could easily join them when they've been booted by Janson, but he feels like an intruder - an outsider trying to squeeze in somewhere he doesn’t belong, and focuses on deciding whether or not he actually likes his major.

As he walks towards the general direction of the building their Advanced Calculus class is in, he kicks a pebble in front of him and stares down at the ground, wondering if his inexplicable moodiness can be blamed on the terrible tea Americans drink. As far as Newt’s concerned, tea should not have _leaves_ in it.

He hears his friends before he sees them, Sonya’s obnoxious laugh traveling in the crowd. He’d be dead and well-buried in the ground before he’d ever admit it, but the sound of Sonya’s laugh calms him down when he’s silently stressed and makes him feel less tense around strangers. He passes through the sea of people with more ease, stopping just behind Thomas as the other boy is saying, “Let’s just hope I can convince Teresa.”

“There you all are.” Newt remarks, smiling for the first time that day as he joins them. “Convince Teresa of what?”

“To go to Minho’s Halloween party.” Harriet explains and locks their fingers together. Her skin is warm as their hands swing back and forth. “She wants to go to this other thing with their friends instead.”

The easiness Newt had been feeling disintegrates into dread in his stomach. He turns to Thomas. “You are coming, though. Aren’t you?”

“Of course he is.” Sonya says assuredly and he can already hear the smart remark coming before she says it. “ _Someone_ has to babysit you while you sulk in the corner.”

His best friend and his girlfriend snicker at her quip, but Newt just rolls his eyes as the brief feelings of stress and anxiousness pass. He’s holding his girlfriend’s hand as they’re walking towards Thomas’s car on a beautiful autumn day and his new favourite friend is surely coming to Minho’s Halloween party instead of some silly woods party with his high school friends he doesn’t even like.

Life is good.

“Shut up, you twit. What’s the fun, anyways? You drink, you dance, you drunkenly hook up with someone, and then you move on the next day. It’s all so… trivial.”

Minho groans, walking in front of him. “Oh no, not this again. Are we going to get dinner or is Newt going to lecture us about not growing up?”

Newt rolls his eyes again. “You’re the worst. Actually, you’re the worst of the worst.”

“And you love me anyways,” Minho says cockily before calling shot-gun in Thomas’s car. Harriet squeezes his hand once last time before sliding into the middle of the backseat to serve as a barrier between Newt and Sonya.

Thomas buckles his seatbelt in the front and starts the engine. “Are we going to that new Italian place downtown?”

“Yeah, we gotta try out our fake I.Ds.” Minho says, pulling the I.Ds out of his backpack. “Here’s yours. You don’t look so ugly in this.”

Thomas snorts. “Thanks, Minho. You’re not so bad yourself when you’re not drooling in Janson’s class in the morning.”

Minho passes Harriet and Sonya’s fake I.Ds back to them, but holds onto Newt’s with a scrutinizing glare. “Newt, do you realize you look like you’re 12?”

Newt rolls his eyes for the third time that day, as Sonya and Harriet laugh like hyenas next to him. “I don’t look _that_ young.”

“That’s a load of klunk and you know it.” Minho says. “For fuck’s sake, Thomas even calls you Peter Pan.”

“Because you look just like him!” Thomas insists, meeting Newt’s eyes through the rearview mirror. “You know it’s true, we watched the movie the other day together.”

“Can anyone in this car honestly say that Newt doesn’t look like he’s 12?” 

Harriet raises her hand supportively.

“Thank you Harriet,” He says, kissing her cheek.

Sonya just scoffs. “She has to say that, on principle. She’s 19 - she can’t bloody well date a 12-year-old, can she?”

Minho cackles and Harriet thumps Sonya on the back of her head. “Shut up, you pervert.”

“ _I’m_ not the one dating a 12-year-old.”

“I’m not 12 and I don’t look 12!” Newt says indignantly. 

“Nah, Newt doesn’t look like he’s 12, guys come on.” Thomas says and for a moment, Newt thinks he might have won this argument against the bullies he calls his best friend and sister. 

“He’s more like 13 and a half.”

“Oh, shut up!”

 

I.

 

Newt’s surprised his fake I.D even works, despite his indignant protesting that he did not look a day under the age of 18. The waiter who checks their I.Ds barely gives them a second glance after they’ve all ordered a round of beer.

Newt ends up sitting next to Harriet again, with Minho on the other side of him. Sonya and Thomas are across the table, bickering over appetizers. 

“How was your day?” Harriet asks, tapping her fingers on his leg under the table.

He shrugs, his stomach sharply reminding him he hasn’t eaten a proper meal all day. “Lounged around until a couple of hours ago, I think. How about you?”

Harriet frowns, looking up from her menu. “You stayed in bed all day? You didn’t even go to classes?”

He hears the worry in her voice and tries not to groan. “Just woke up a bit tired this morning.”

“I wake up tired every morning.” Harriet shakes her head and thankfully drops the subject, raising her voice to address the rest of the group. “Should I try the spicy chicken quesadilla?”

Sonya shakes her head fervently. “Let’s get pasta. I’ve been craving alfredo for a week -“

“Alright, enough with that, we have more important matters to talk about.” Minho waves his hand dismissively. “My Halloween party is in a couple of weeks and you shanks better have great costumes. And not start any fights this time.”

Thomas nearly chokes on his beer, his eyes bulging out of his head. “I didn’t do anything!”

“I’m going to be a kitten.” Sonya informs everyone before Minho and Thomas can go at it. “There are these black boots I just bought at the mall and I’ve been needing an excuse to wear them.”

“You have to be Peter Pan.” Thomas tells Newt, pointing his menu at him from across the table. 

Newt rolls his eyes. “So what are you going to be? One of those sports players you’re always drooling over?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a Mets jersey lying around at home. And I’m not drooling over them all the time!”

“Harriet, you’re going as Peter Pan’s lover if we’re making Newt dress up as the goddamn character.” Minho says authoritatively. “And -“

“What?” Harriet frowns as their waiter brings their food over to the table. “He doesn’t have a lover, he’s a _fictional_ character for children. Stop being perverts.”

The waiter gives them a strange look before heading over to the elderly couple next to them. Newt wonders if he’s regretting letting these University students drink beer at 5 in the afternoon.

“No, he does. There’s that girl he fancies - the one from England. God, I can’t remember her name.” Newt recalls. He hadn’t seen the movie in years until last week when Thomas came by his dorm after one of his morning classes and felt like sticking around on campus until everyone else was ready to hang out. Since Newt didn’t have any other classes later that day, he indulged Thomas in a movie marathon and made himself sit through an hour and twenty minutes of the bloody Disney cartoon.

 **“** Nah, I’m talking about the Native American one. The one who had a tiger?”

“They weren’t lovers.” Thomas corrected him. “And her name’s Tiger Lily. Although Harriet, you _would_ make the perfect Tiger Lily.”

She merely sighs and turns to Newt. “We can go shopping tomorrow. If you’re not too tired when you wake up.”

Sonya frowns. “Hey! I thought I was your shopping buddy.”

“Do you want to come?”

“ _No_.” Newt groans before Sonya can even open her mouth. “She spends hours at the mall, just to purchase absolutely nothing important and I refuse to suffer through an entire afternoon with her.”

“You’re such a bloody bastard -“

“Hey, hey, hey.” Thomas, ever the mediator, intervenes. “How about we all just go shopping together?”

 

II.

 

Going costume shopping together _sounded_ like a great idea - until they actually did it one week before Minho’s party.

Minho decided he was going to be Michael Jackson and dragged them all around the mall, trying to find the perfect curly black-haired wig and leather jacket. He officially banned Thomas from speaking when the brunet made a snarky comment about how Minho’s ego was too big for the wig, then talking loudly over him every time Thomas even breathed out a word. Sonya and Newt got kicked out of a dress store when he told her precisely what he thought of the black romper she tried on first and she slapped him in the face for calling her a slut. The fight only escalated until one of the employees asked them kindly to find another store to shop at and Harriet snapped at both of them for getting kicked out of the only store that had a dress she liked.

  
Overall, it was a complete shit-show.

“Minho, we’ve been here already.” Harriet complains as the Korean tries on the same leather jacket he tried on an hour ago, at a store they’ve been to twice already. “I have a lab report due tomorrow and Newt and I still haven’t found our costumes.”

“How hard is it to find a green shirt?” Minho says dismissively. 

“How hard is it to choose a fucking leather jacket?” 

Newt sits down next to Thomas and Sonya, who are more engaged in watching a music video on Sonya’s phone and ignoring the brewing chaos. 

“What are you shanks looking at?”

Thomas shrugs and leans back against the wall. “Anything to make the time go by faster. Although, I’ve gotta head out soon, Teresa needs a ride back home.”

Newt stays mum at the mention of Thomas’s best friend’s name, whom he’d barely seen since the first time he, Sonya, Thomas, and her all had dinner together at the diner. Any time she was around the gang, she was always on her phone or only directly speaking to Thomas. She was a nice girl for the most part, kindly waving if any of them saw her on campus, but it was clear that she was _Thomas’s_ friend first and foremost.

Which didn’t necessarily mean she was _their_ friend, too.

“Thomas, who said you could talk?”

Thomas rolls his eyes. “Minho, who said you could breathe?”

“Don’t be such a -“

“Minho, just buy the bloody jacket and let’s go.” Sonya complains, putting her phone away and slumping in her seat. Her leg subtly touches Thomas’s but she doesn’t seem keen on moving away from him. 

“When Sonya’s complaining that we’ve been here too long, that’s how you know we’ve been here too long.” Harriet groans. “I want to go back to that dress store you two got us kicked out of.”

“I want to go the food court.” Thomas pipes up. “I’m starving.”

“I obviously have to go somewhere else and that arsehole can’t come along.” Sonya points at Newt, who merely rolls his eyes. 

Minho turns to Newt. “What do you wanna do, buddy?”

His leg’s starting to act up and flare with pain, which was why he’d sat down. He really would like nothing more than to go back to the Glade and lie in his bed for the rest of the evening, but Sonya, Minho, and Harriet would all give him those pitiful looks and try to coax him into visiting the student health office. 

Newt just shrugs. “I’m hungry, too. The food court sounds nice.”

“You haven’t even found your costume, yet.” Harriet reminds him. “You and I can go to a different department store together.”

“ _Harriet._ ” Sonya whines petulantly like the spoiled brat she is. “You’re my shopping buddy! And the only other girl here, we have to stick together.”

“Yeah but you’re not the one she wants in her bed tonight.”

“ _Minho!”_ Newt and Harriet exclaim at the same time, their cheeks turning a flaming red color. Thomas, the bloody bastard, snickers beside Newt and pokes him in the ribs. 

“ _Ew_!” Sonya closes her eyes and clamps her hands over his ears. “Don’t talk about that. And if you really are planning to spend the night, Newt, I’m sleeping in your room. And I’ll pour my foundation all over your bed.”

“You’re a bloody twat and if you do something like that, I’ll tell mum the truth about what happened to her favourite Persian rug over the summer.”

Sonya gasps in horror. “You swore you wouldn’t say anything! You promised and I fucking paid you to keep quiet, you little shit!”

Newt doesn’t realize their voices are escalating and they’re attracting the attention of younger children, who probably are going to go home and ask their parents what a _twat_ is. He’s also not paying attention to Minho and Harriet who are furiously gesturing for them to shut up, or poor Thomas in between them trying to intervene.

“ _You’re_ the little shit who throws bloody tantrums when you can’t get what you want -“

“Excuse me.” A store employee says sternly, breaking up the verbal battle between Newt and his sister. He’s a pudgy man, with far less patience than the previous store employee who’d kicked them out. “But I’m going to have to ask you to leave or I’ll call security.”

 

III.

 

“I don’t see why you have to bait her so often.” Harriet mentions later that night, when he does end up back at her and Sonya’s dorm. Sonya, true to her word, went back to Minho and Newt’s dorm and Newt made Minho promise to keep an eye on her and her dumb foundation. “You know she’s sensitive.”

He knew that she’d end up taking Sonya’s side. He rolls his eyes and leans back on her bed while she hangs up the brown dress she’d ended up buying after they all accompanied Thomas to the food court to grab dinner. Surprisingly, they had all been in much better moods after something filled their empty stomachs.

“She’s the one who starts everything.”

This time, Harriet rolls her eyes. “You still don’t have to bait her. You’re not children.”

There’s something ironic about her statement, as they’re both prepared to dress up as characters from the fairy tale about a boy who never wanted to grow up. Newt understands Peter more and more each day, feeling nostalgic for when he and Sonya didn’t bite each other’s heads off all the time and would make mud castles together after school. He wishes she hadn’t made friends with Elizabeth Bennett and Jane Whatever-Her-Last-Name-Is in primary school and had become more annoying and snotty, complaining about everything all the time. He was her best friend first, until she decided he wasn’t good enough and started going places he couldn’t follow anymore. 

He wishes they were kids again. When everything wasn’t complicated. When he was still Sonya’s twin brother. 

He’s about to make a quip about how maybe being children isn’t quite such a bad thing, before she turns back to him and shows him a pretty black dress. “Let’s go on a proper dinner date. Tomorrow night? At some classy restaurant where we can pretend we’re classy people.”

Newt snorts. “Wouldn’t you rather stay in? We could order a pizza and watch a movie.”

“We always eat pizza. Wouldn’t you rather have pasta and champagne?”

He and Minho had tried out their fake ID’s the other day and bought an insane amount of tequila, vodka, wine, and beer that could last them for the rest of the semester. His wallet is a little sore and too thin to be thinking about expensive dinner dates. 

“Let’s compromise?” He asks. “Minho and I got some wine the other day. We can drink that and eat pizza.”

Harriet tries to hide her monumental disappointment but he can see it all too clearly in her eyes. He wonders if this was the expression his father looked into the night he told his wife that he got someone else pregnant. Even though this situation doesn't even compare to _that_ situation - Newt can’t help but feel something tug at his heart.

_This is so easy, don’t you dare mess this up. Making her happy is the most important part of the relationship. Don’t mess this up._

“You know actually, dinner tomorrow at a classy restaurant sounds great. Pick you up at 8?”

 

IV.

 

Newt’s having a fine Saturday morning in his dorm room alone for once, that just so happens to be on Halloween, until his sister calls him in hysterics and asks to come over.

She’s a snotty mess when she appears, but she doesn’t appear to have been crying. “I got into a spat with dad. He’s upset that we don’t call him as frequently as we call mum. There are obvious reasons why we _don’t,_ that he chooses to ignore. He says I only call him when I need money so I told him he barely calls me and I have no obligation to call him at all -“

“Why were you even arguing with him in the first place?” Newt interrupts her. “What brought all of this on?”

“I called him because I needed money.”

Newt sighs. “You’re not supposed to call him if you need money, I thought we agreed on this at the beginning of the semester. We only talk to him if we have to.”

“Well I _had_ to because mum keeps bloody nagging me to stop buying so much hair products and make-up. I needed some extra money for lunch with a new friend I made in one of my classes.”

“I would’ve lent you money.” Newt sighs again. “Then what happened?”

“He kept acting like a pissed off 12-year-old and said that our tuition was expensive enough and we needed to be more frugal with our money and stop spending it on silly things. I told him that we don’t call him because he does this - he always trivializes what we do and makes a big deal out of everything. And he just kept getting me so riled up that I could barely talk to him without snapping at him and then he told me I was being disrespectful and to call him back when I had calmed down, and I told him I’d never call him back if he continued to be a prick -“

“You called him a _prick_?!” Newt asks horrified.

“Well, maybe not out loud. But I told him I wouldn’t call him back if he was going to treat me like this and then he said I was being a spoiled brat, which is completely unfair because in the two months we’ve been here, I’ve only called him _once_ for money.”

He lets Sonya vent until her rage has turned to mild irritation and she’s not so snotty anymore. While she’d been talking, he’d been biting his lip, frowning as he tried to figure out how to word his thoughts carefully.

“Well, maybe he’s right.”

Sonya whirls around, her hands on her hips. “Are you bloody joking?”

“We have only called him _once_ \- and that was you, not me.”

Sonya’s eyes are nearly bulging out of her head. “Isaac Newton, you’re not seriously defending him right now, are you? If I wanted a lecture on how I should be nicer to him even after _everything’s he done to us,_ I would’ve called mum. You’re supposed to understand.”

“I do!” Newt says, still biting his lip. “But you shouldn’t have called him for money in the first place. You know it was just going to make him angry.”

Sonya rolls her eyes. “He’s our father, he’s supposed to give us money if we need it.”

“Yeah, and has he proved to be father of the year?”

“That’s why you’re supposed to understand and take my side!” Sonya exclaims. “It’s us against him. He’s the one who lied to us for _years_ and has been a complete prick to us.”

“I’m not saying he’s a good person, I’m just saying he has a point. You only called him for money.”

“What else am I going to say to him!?” Sonya asks bewildered. “Oh 'hi dad, how have you been since you told us that you had sex with some whore and pretended my brother was my twin for 18 years and would never have told us until I wanted to get my bloody naval pierced?' Are you bloody knackered?”

“You weren’t supposed to call him for money!”

Their relationship with their father was already strained enough. While Newt isn’t sure he can ever look him in the eyes without remembering he was the indirect cause for his permanent injury and feeling hostility towards the man, their father’s still the one paying their tuition and letting them attend University in the States alongside their closest friends. Their father’s still the same man who took them to all of their sporting events when they were children, sat front row at all of their recitals and took them out for ice cream afterwards, paid for family vacations to the south of France during the summers when he and their mum could get time off.

He wants to be angry like Sonya is, livid and full of anger. But he can’t feel anything anymore. He can’t feel excited about Halloween parties and dinner dates. He can’t feel sadness when he walks the wrong way on his bad leg and remembers why he even has a bad leg in the first place. He can’t feel anything.

He can’t even feel hopelessness or regret when Sonya’s lip starts quivering and she gives him a cold stony glare before stomping out of his room and slamming the door behind her. “You’re so infuriating.”

 

V.

 

He’s determined to get wasted tonight at Minho’s party (technically his party too, since it is also his dorm). He has more beers than he normally drinks regularly and even took a couple shots with Harriet before people started arriving.

She looks exceptionally pretty tonight, with her hair braided and a ocean blue headband atop her head. Her brown dress compliments her brown skin and he knows _he’s_ supposed to compliment her but his brain is acting funnier than usual. She’s the same girl who used to chase after him and Minho, in her backyard at her family home in Colorado, in a tie-dye shirt and bright orange shorts. After their third shot together, he’s starting to see that little girl chasing him with wild curly hair flying behind her instead of the beautiful woman right in front of him.

At some point during the night, she leaves his side and he’s honestly not surprised. Thomas hasn’t yet made an appearance at the party and Newt feels like moping, the only person who sticks around him when he’s in one of his moods, being MIA. Minho had kept him company for a while before he realized Newt was absolutely not going to get up and dance to Thriller like he wanted to. He hadn’t even spoken to his sister since this morning.

Holding his two beers firmly in his hands, he stays close to the bathroom per usual and doesn’t make much of an effort to talk to anyone. No one makes much of an effort to talk to him, either. It’s perfectly fine for Newt. He doesn’t enjoy the company of much people, anyways.

Except, he does enjoy the company of Thomas.

In his famous Met jersey and baseball pants, he finds Newt in the corner by the bathroom and even smiles as he comes closer.

Newt likes it when Thomas smiles.

“Tommy, you made it! I was almost getting worried for a second.”

“Your sister tried to seduce me.” Thomas tells him almost immediately, sitting down next to him. He likes it when Thomas sits next to him, he smells nice. Like the kind of cologne some bloke a year above him used to wear, but far too much. Thomas wears the right amount. Just the right amount. 

“I set her down by Minho’s bed.”

Newt had been so focused on Thomas’s cologne that he’s barely registered what their conversation is about. “That’ll do. You’re a smart one, Tommy. Minho likes beds very much. Have a beer.”

He doesn’t like sharing his beer, but it’s Thomas. Thomas, the nicest, pretty boy in the States. 

“How many have you had?”

Thomas, the boy who made him watch Peter Pan cause the Disney cartoon character reminds him of Newt. “The second star to the right.”

A frown crosses over Thomas’s face and he’s looking away from Newt. “Hey, Newt - I think Ben’s flirting with your sister. They’re sitting very close to each other and -“

 _There are some places Sonya’s going to go where you just can’t follow her, Isaac_.

“Don’t you think it’s all happening too fast?” Newt suddenly blurts out, looking at Thomas for all the answers. _Why did Sonya stop wanting me to hang out with her and her friends all those years ago? Why did she suddenly become interested in boys and lipstick and kissing when he was still waiting for her to come back home and play in the garden with him?_

“Pardon?”

“This whole growing up thing. It’s all happening too fast.” Newt mutters, still looking at Thomas. “We’re in college, sharing beers, when it feels like just yesterday, Sonya and I were digging around in mud.”

Thomas tilts his head to the side slightly and raises his eyebrows. “What are you trying to say?”

_Why can’t I follow my sister anymore, or talk to her civilly over something stupid like phone calls to our bloody father? Why do I wake up feeling dread but absolutely nothing at the same time? Why is it easier to talk to you about this, than Harriet?_

“I never wanted to grow up. Growing up meant - well, it means … I guess I’m just … everything, I think, is so dark and harsh and _honest_.” Newt finally finds the words to say but even in his drunken haze, he knows they’re not making very much sense. “People are honest with you, when you’re grown up. People are more expectant of you, more hard on you, more everything.”

Jane expects him to get good grades and be happy. Harriet expects him to be a good boyfriend and like classy dinner dates. Sonya expects him to understand and feel.

Thomas is quiet for a moment. “What’s wrong with being honest?”

“It means you know the truth - the whole, messy, fucked up truth.” Newt explains, expecting to feel the same heaviness and absolute nothingness he’s been accustomed to feeling lately. “When you’re a kid, everything is perfect, you see. You believe your family is perfect and can do no wrong. And then, they’re honest.”

_Then your mum is always telling you to be frugal with money and to call your father. Then your sister is always running off without you, because you can’t keep up with her with a broken leg._

“So you’re saying it’s better to be lied to than told the truth?”

He’s waiting for the heaviness and nothingness to pull him further away from reality, far away to Neverland. But he feels … _something._

He feels drunk - which, at least, it's not nothing.

“Precisely.”

Thomas’s eyebrows are furred in a cute way. Newt likes it when Thomas -

“ _There_ you are!” A voice exclaims and Newt’s suddenly blinking himself back into the real world. “Hi Thomas! Did you see Sonya and Ben?”

“I was surprised, myself.”

It’s Harriet talking, Newt realizes as he looks up and sees her shapely body standing in front of him. “I wasn’t. He’d been eyeing her all night and now it looks as if he’s got what he wanted.”

He heard his sister’s name and he heard a boy’s name and he heard _got what he wanted_. “What?”

“Oh, relax.” Harriet tells him. “They’re only hooking up in the bathroom, last I heard.”

 _“Only_?”

“Newt.” She says, a slight hint of exasperation in her voice. Is he really that drunk? Is she upset? Is she tired? “She’s a big girl. Let her live. Come with me.”

He’s a little reluctant to stand up. Especially when Thomas had been listening so intently to him complain and talk about nonsense. Especially when he just wants to lie down, avoid anything physical, feel nostalgia for mud castles and joint birthday cakes.

He turns to Thomas, looking him deep in the eyes. “Do you have siblings, Tommy?”

“No.”

“You wouldn’t understand either.” Newt starts to stand up but his leg flares up in pain and he’s bending back down again, very close to Thomas. A thought crosses his mind and even though he’s quite drunk, he whispers, “Keep an eye out for my sister, okay? And don’t grow up too much while I’m gone.”

 

VI.

 

He and Harriet walk back to her dorm, swinging their hands back and forth in silence. She walks slow with him, seeing his limp is more pronounced than usual.

“Are you ever going to tell me what happened? To your leg?”

Her voice is soft and airy, as if she’s trying to pretend she’s okay with not knowing, should he choose not to say anything.

He thinks about it for a moment, focusing on their swinging hands. “It was an accident.”

They stay silent for a few more minutes.

“A car accident?” She finally asks. “A bike accident? Were you riding your bike around London and fell off when you saw a pigeon?”

He laughs drily at the memory, somehow very clear in his foggy, drunken haze. When they were children and Harriet visited them in London one summer, the three of them had been riding bikes in front of the family home. They’d been racing up and down the street until Newt was _attacked_ by a pigeon and the girls started laughing at him, instead of helping him.

“It attacked me!”

“It merely flew on top of your handlebar!” Harriet laughs with him this time around. “You should’ve seen your face! You looked like you were ready to pee your pants.”

“Yeah, well you would’ve done the same thing if a pigeon tried to _attack_ you.”

“Good thing it didn’t.”

They fall back into a comfortable silence once again and it’s _easier_ like this. Being a good boyfriend is easy, but _this_ is easier. _This_ is how it’s always been, them laughing back and forth with each other. Harriet in her bright green clogs, bright orange shorts, and tie-dye tank tops. Newt complaining about vicious pigeons.

He’s tired. She’s exhausted. They’ve talked about the bike incident and the swimming pool incident and the pizza incident and the music festival incident on their way back from Minho’s kick-ass Halloween party. They’ve laughed and swung their hands back and forth. When they finally get back to her dorm, he falls asleep curled up next to her - as if they were in sleeping bags back in Harriet’s basement in Colorado, listening to Sonya snore and throwing popcorn kernels at her while she slept peacefully.

 

VII.

 

_“Cooties!”_

 

VIII.

 

He’s feeling fairly groggy but surprisingly not hungover when he returns back to his own dorm the next day, sometime in the afternoon. His leg is feeling a bit better, but his stomach is completely empty and rumbling loud enough he’s sure his mum can hear it across the pond.

When he sticks his keys inside the doorknob and walks into his room, the first thing he sees is Minho’s practically dead body. He’s barely breathing and Newt has half a mind to check his pulse. But he’s seen Minho sleeping the night after a fantastic party - the shank is alive, but still drunk even the morning after.

He is surprised to find Thomas curled up in his bed, clutching the covers for dear life. Newt's stomach rumbles again but Minho barely moves. Thomas stirs slightly and it gives Newt some hope. 

He hovers over Thomas’s bed and whispers, “Tommy. Tommy, wake up."

Thomas stirs ever so slightly again.

“Thomas.”

Thomas’s eyes flutter open.

“Ah, you _are_ awake! I was hoping you were because I was getting quite lonely.”

Thomas rubs his eyes and sits up in Newt’s bed, his eyes widening suddenly. “Oh crap, I’m sorry, let me -“

“Don’t worry about it, mate.” Newt says before the shank can apologize for something small, like sleeping. “You look tired.”

Thomas looks hungover as fuck, but Newt kindly doesn’t mention that. He likes it when Thomas tries to crack a smile, even though he’s clearly suffering through the world’s worst hangover.

“What time is it?”

Newt had looked at his phone before walking in the door, making sure Sonya’s latest text to him didn’t include pictures of him in Harriet’s bed. 

_Sonya (13:20): Dinner tonight?_

_Newt (13:23): Thought I was infuriating_

_Sonya (13:25): You are. But we haven’t gotten dinner, just the two of us, in ages. Miss u baby brudder. Come hang out with your wiser, awesome, older sister x_

_Newt (13:26): Now YOU’RE the infuriating one_

_Newt (13:27): See you at 18:30 x_

_Sonya (13:29):_ ❤️

“1:30.” He says, adapting the time for Thomas’s sake.

“In the _afternoon_?” Thomas’s voice raises a couple octaves.

“Figured I’d try and wake you up. Minho’s a bear if I wake him up before three.”

Thomas rushes to stand up, but he’d been clutching the sheets all night he’d made a cocoon of them around his body. He ends up falling off the bed and Newt can’t help but laugh.

“You have a bloody hangover, don’t you?” He jokes as if he hasn’t been able to tell since the poor boy woke up. “I’ll go fetch you a Tylenol and some water.”

He disappears into the bathroom but a dark thought crosses his mind as he brings Thomas some water and medicine. “I hope you don’t have to throw up.”

The room’s already filthy enough. Solo cups litter the floor and Minho’s decorations are still strung everywhere. The last thing anyone needs is Thomas throwing up in the middle of the room.

“I do, however, feel like I decided to pound a hammer against my head for six hours.”

“At least you’re awake,” Newt chuckles, looking back over to Minho. “This shank is barely breathing.”

“Again, man, I’m sorry to intrude on your bed, I don’t even remember that happening.”

Newt just waves him off. “It’s not like you were intruding. I wasn’t sleeping on it.”

“Oh yeah,” Thomas frowns slightly. “Where were you?”

“I was with Harriet.” He says, scratching his neck and leaving out the details of them just falling asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow. “I can’t say waking up to Sonya shouting, “ _Cooties!_ ” at me was a terrific start to the morning.”

Thomas snorts. “I better get going. My mom is probably worried that I haven’t called.”

“Are you hungry?” Newt asks quickly. “I haven’t eaten all morning and I’m in the mood for pancakes. There’s this spectacular diner across the street that makes breakfast until two - which is why I finally woke you up. Say you’ll come?”

He can see the internal debate on Thomas’s face, as he struggles with the decision of going home to his own bed and eating his own home-cooked food.

A warm feeling brings a smile to Newt’s face when Thomas looks at him and grins. “I’m in.”

He likes it when Thomas spends time with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry this is late!! meant to have it up last thursday, but i was completely busy all week/weekend and didn't have time to write this. people have been leaving such nice comments on "you were my best four years" lately that i NEEDED to update this. i'm rly excited to get to the later chapters (you guys are such troopers for dealing w MAJOR slow-burn!!!!!)
> 
> this chapter was mainly so internal for newt, because he hasn't quite realized he's heavily depressed right now and he's feeling extremely nostalgic for the days where he wasn't. for him, it seems to link back to his childhood when he stopped being sonya's only and best friend. i'm curious to hear what your thoughts about this are!!! 
> 
> can't believe i used to think 3k was a lot of words when i literally just wrote 6k in two hours what the heck
> 
> if you've read the original story, you already know what happens with newt and harriet. i'm not sure if anyone hasn't read you were my best four years yet so i won't spoil it toooo much, but this is where the shift in their relationship is beginning to come about and newt's starting to understand something he'll admit out loud on valentines day. yay tension!
> 
> a lot more things were supposed to come around in this chapter, but i wanted to end on a somewhat positive note, considering newt's been so sad these past chapters. i hope to have the next one up by thursday like i normally do:) thanks for reading this you guys, it really means a lot x


	4. it doesn't hurt to be nice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teresa innocently asks: “Are you guys going home for the holiday?”
> 
> Harriet’s fingers stop rubbing patterns over his knee as Newt visibly tenses, but Sonya quickly comes to the rescue, with a strained laugh. “Thanksgiving’s not a national holiday in England. It’s very American.”
> 
> Teresa chuckles. “Oh, I totally forgot that. I bet your parents miss you though.”
> 
> Newt wonders why she’s pushing the topic so much, considering it’s a silently mutual agreement never to bring up Sonya and Newt’s mum or dad - but he realizes slowly that it’s not as mutual for Thomas and Teresa. He barely realizes that he’s only known Thomas for close to three months, even though it feels like he’s known the boy for ages now. 
> 
> And never once has Thomas ever asked about his parents.
> 
> “They call every so often.” Newt says, trying to avoid everyone else’s eyes. They call every so often, and maybe once or twice a month we pick up.
> 
> {november: the one where the gang celebrates friendship and friendsgiving, where thomas is blind, where newt learns that it might actually hurt to be nice}

“Garrett’s Revenge is a horror movie.” Harriet complains. “Why can’t we see something cute and funny for once?”

It’s a couple weeks before it’s the dreaded American holiday they call Thanksgiving, and the gang’s all back at the Italian restaurant before they go to the cinema. Their fake I.Ds worked like a charm again, though the server this time around gave Newt a double-take and asked him specifically what his birthdate was.

Minho frowns in return, talking while chewing his spaghetti. “What the hell is cute and funny?”

Harriet chides him for speaking with his mouth full. “Like a comedy. Isn’t that movie Love, Simon supposed to be good?”

“Oh, yes!” Sonya exclaims, sitting next to her with a glass of strawberry wine. “It’s supposed to be a really lovely film, I say we see that.”

“But Garret’s Revenge is going to be so good, though!” Thomas tries to persuade them, sitting on the other side of Newt. They’ve split themselves up so that the boys are on one side and Sonya and Harriet are on the other. “It’s got Robert Downey Jr. in it.”

Harriet merely raises her eyebrow. “And that’s supposed to convince me to want to see it? God, we always see what you guys want to see because you out-number us.”

“Yeah, we really need another girl in the group.” Sonya sighs, before her eyes dart to Thomas. “What about your friend, Thomas? She seems like a nice person.”

“She’s gorgeous.” Minho adds, still talking with his mouthful. “Is she single?”

Newt elbows him in the side. 

Thomas rolls his eyes and shrugs it off. “Yes, she’s single - but you stay away from her - and yeah, I’ve tried to invite her to hang out with us a few times but she’s always hanging out with her friends from high school.”

“Listen Harriet, let me put my newfound business skills to use and make you a deal: if we go see Garrett’s Revenge, you can pick the after plans.”

Harriet immediately perks up at this, while Sonya makes a face. “Why are you only making Harriet a deal? I don’t want to see Garrett’s Revenge, either.”

“You’re ditching us.” Minho reminds her. “For some hot date who you are definitely not going to be studying Advanced Calculus with - because if you were, you would’ve just asked one of us and since you’re ditching us, your opinion doesn’t matter.”

Maturely, Sonya sticks her tongue out at him. “Bugger.”

“I’m wounded.”

“So if we go see Garrett’s Revenge, we’re going to that karaoke lounge downtown.” Harriet interrupts the two before they can start going at it with each other. 

Minho groans so loudly, he attracts the attention of every single other guest in the restaurant. “God, why karaoke? I don’t want to hear you all sing and sound like dying walruses.”

“You alright?” Newt hears a low voice ask him, while Harriet protests Minho’s ever so kind remarks. He turns to his other side, where Thomas is looking at him. “You haven’t said much.”

The thing is - Newt doesn’t want Sonya to go on her dumb date tonight.

Because when Sonya isn’t around, Harriet’s best friend becomes Newt which makes sense because he is her _boyfriend._ But Harriet’s slightly irritated with him because they “don’t go out enough,” and “spend all their time in Minho and Newt’s dorm before Minho brings a pretty girl back home where they then just spend the rest of the night in her and Sonya’s dorm.” She wants to go out on proper dates more often, but is tired of just going on fancy dinner dates.

So Newt told her she was being complicated and indecisive - which is something he’d told her back when they were in Year 11 and she was complaining about her prom date, but she didn’t appreciate his comments _now_ as freshmen in University.

And most likely because he was her _boyfriend_ and good boyfriends didn’t tell their girlfriends they were being complicated and indecisive - even when they were. 

Minho says he should just apologize which he _did_ , but Harriet’s still giving him the cold shoulder and he’s still trying to avoid having to talk to her alone tonight. He’s more tired than usual and he’s not even sure if he’s up for a movie, let alone after plans.

Newt shrugs and stabs his chicken parmesan with his fork. “Yeah. Just not that hungry. You?”

Thomas chuckles, “My mother hit me in the head with a cookbook before I came.”

Newt’s eyes widen. “Bloody hell, what for?”

“I was too busy texting you guys and not helping her plan Thanksgiving dinner,” Thomas grins as he rubs gingerly at a spot on the back of his head. “It wasn’t painful or anything, but it was definitely a shock.”

“Well, next time I’m trying to get your attention and you’re not listening to me, I know what to do.”  
Thomas laughs at that, causing the others to look in their direction.

“What are you shanks talking about?” Minho asks. “Can one of you tell Harriet that a karaoke lounge is a terrible idea and we should just go to that sports bar?”

“You said I could pick the after plans if we go see Garrett’s Revenge!”

Sonya tries to intervene, “The karaoke lounge sounds fun -“

“You’re not even coming.” Newt reminds his sister, crossing his arms over his chest. He’d discovered once with Sonya that the meaner he was to her, the more defiant she became. Maybe - just _maybe_ \- he could bait her into ditching her dumb date and talking to Harriet for him.

Sonya rolls her eyes and does the exact opposite of what he wants her do, leaning back into her seat and pulling out her phone. “Sorry, Harriet. I tried. How about we see a movie we want to watch and then Harriet will go to that sports bar with you?”

Harriet shakes her head. “Let’s watch a movie we can all agree on, but I’m going to go home early then. We’ll all go out tomorrow night when everyone’s around.”

She turns her attention to Newt, looking at him expectantly. Suddenly everyone’s quiet and it feels like the whole world is staring at him, expecting him to say something. They’re the loudest table in the restaurant but Newt oddly becomes aware of everyone else around them and how it feels like they’re all waiting for him to say something too.

He nods and blurts out the first thing that comes to mind, “Okay. Sounds good.”

He doesn’t miss the flash of disappointment in her eyes before she turns back to Sonya and starts talking about some reality show they’d been binge-watching over the weekend.

“That wasn’t apologizing.” Minho mutters next to him and Newt groans. What did she want him to say? 

_This was supposed to be easy._

 

II.

 

After the weekend’s over, Newt manages to find Harriet after one of her classes before they go to meet their friends at the quad. 

He catches up to her in the crowd, his limp barely bothering him that day. “Hi.”

She looks surprised to see him and instinctively wraps her arm around his shoulders, before remembering she’s still irritated with him. “Hey.”

“There’s this cool event happening this weekend that I found out about in my Psychology class. Apparently a hypnotist is coming and he’s going to try to hypnotize everyone in the audience. I, uh, I was thinking we could go? Maybe get dinner or something beforehand?”

She raises her eyebrow as they walk side by side, approaching the quad where he can already see the others. Even Teresa’s there for once. 

“Like on an actual date?”

* * *

 

_“She wants to go out on an actual date.”_

_Newt had sighed and leaned back on his bed, shoving his head into his pillow. “We go to the cinema all the time. Out to restaurants, to bars we’re not even supposed to be going to.”_

_“Yeah but those aren’t dates, slinthead. Dates are something you two do by yourselves before you go home for the night and -“_

_“Don’t you_ _dare_ _finish that sentence.”_

* * *

 

“Like an actual date.” Newt nods his head, feeling a little proud of himself. This morning he’d managed to get out of bed after only hitting snooze on his alarm clock twice, when normally it takes him four or five times. He’d showered before Minho could get in the bathroom and start gelling up his hair, and actually grabbed a bagel for breakfast before heading for his first and only class of the day. 

It’s November but the weather is pleasant for once, instead of the cold breeze that had been terrorizing the campus for weeks now. He wants to make sure that in every single possible way, today is gonna be a great day. 

Harriet nods back and slowly starts to smile. “Okay. Yeah, sure that sounds fun.”

“Okay, cool. Yeah, that sounds great.”

He’s not exactly sure _when_ their conversations began ending like this, awkwardly stuttering and repeating essentially what the other had just said. But thankfully they’re approaching their friends right in the middle of a group conversation, which drowns out the painfully awkward silence between Newt and Harriet, who sit down in front of a large, maple oak tree.

“My parents are going to _Venice_ for the holiday.” Minho was in the middle of complaining. “They didn’t even buy me a ticket!”

“Probably because they’re paying your tuition?” Harriet reminds him as a joke.

“At least _you_ get to go home,” Minho rolls his eyes and continues whining, reminding Newt that Harriet’s flight back home to Colorado was the next Monday morning. “The rest of us, bums, have to stay here in this dump.”

“Who are you calling a bum?” Sonya asks, lifting her eyes up lazily from her fashion magazine.

“And what dump?” Newt adds, just to rile his best friend up even more.

Minho ignores them and turns to Thomas and Teresa, who are sitting close together and watching something on his phone. With their dark hair and nearly matching light blue shirts, they almost look like siblings. “Please tell me you two have awful plans for Thanksgiving too.”

Teresa’s strikingly blue eyes light up at that and she grins at Thomas. “Actually, Thomas and his mom are coming over. It’s like a tradition we have. We spend it together every year.”

Sonya raises her eyebrows and smiles in a knowing way. “Ah. That sounds fun.”

The look completely goes over Thomas’s head, who turns over to Newt and Harriet’s direction. “What are your plans, Harriet?” 

“I’m flying back home to Colorado next week. I’m staying there for the two weeks we have off to visit family and such.”

“Be very thankful your parents aren’t going to Venice with you.” Minho says, as if this is new information. As if he hadn’t already complained about this to Newt and Sonya last night a thousand times.

“God, Minho, _I’d_ go to Venice with you.” Sonya rolls her eyes, clearly exhausted from Minho’s constant complaining too. “You’re so spoilt.”

“Oh, please. Like you’re any better.”

Sonya might’ve snapped back at Minho something even more bitter, but Teresa innocently asks: “Are you guys going home for the holiday?”

Harriet’s fingers stop rubbing patterns over his knee as Newt visibly tenses, but Sonya quickly comes to the rescue, with a strained laugh. “Thanksgiving’s not a national holiday in England. It’s very American.”

Teresa chuckles. “Oh, I totally forgot that. I bet your parents miss you though.”

Newt wonders why she’s pushing the topic so much, considering it’s a silently mutual agreement _never_ to bring up Sonya and Newt’s mum or dad - but he realizes slowly that it’s not as mutual for Thomas and Teresa. He barely realizes that he’s only known Thomas for close to three months, even though it feels like he’s known the boy for ages now.

And never once has Thomas ever asked about his parents.

“They call every so often.” Newt says, trying to avoid everyone else’s eyes. _They call every so often, and maybe once or twice a month we pick up._

“Let’s have our own Thanksgiving.” Minho decides, cutting the awkward silence short. “We can order a bunch of food and have music and get someone to buy us wine so we’re classy.”

“Classy.” Harriet scoffs.

“Aren’t we supposed to be saving money, instead of spending it?” Sonya points out.

“Consider it an investment into our future.” Minho says.

“Our future of what?” Newt asks him, fairly amused by his roommate’s sudden inspirational speech.

“Of being together. Of being like a family. The Glade family. The Maze Runners.”

Thomas just laughs. “Since when did you become a motivational speaker?”

“Ever since I got this brilliant idea. Thomas, Teresa - you’re invited, of course. We can invite the whole damn school.”

“The whole damn school is going home.” Harriet pipes up. “The only people left are going to be you three.”

Newt feels like he should be disappointed by that, by the fact that he, Sonya, and Minho are the only ones without homes to return to for this Thanksgiving break. He feels more of a tiny spark flickering in his stomach. A little wave of excitement, freedom, and rebellion - of being one of three people left behind on campus to do whatever the fuck they wanted. 

He’d miss his friends, of course.

But they were coming back and there was always FaceTime and Skype and phone calls. How often would he be allowed to stay on campus and run around in his boxers just for shits and giggles?

“Oh crap,” Sonya suddenly exclaims when she checks her phone. “I have two minutes to get across campus for my Pattern Drawing class. Kisses!”

Harriet swiftly kisses Newt’s cheek before standing up as well. “I have a tutoring session for my Advanced English Literature class. See you later.”

“Not that you’re not all lovely people.” Minho says, as he eyes a pretty sophomore across the quad. “But I highly doubt any of you want to end up in my bed tonight.”

Newt snorts and cringes internally, realizing he’s going to have to spend the night with his sister and girlfriend in their dorm in Hall B. “Thanks for that, roommate.”

“How charming.” Teresa remarks after Minho’s left their little group and it’s just the three of them, Newt, Thomas and Teresa, sitting together. Her next question is directed towards Thomas: “Do you have any classes next?”

“Not for the rest of the day.”

“Oh, me neither.” Newt says, accidentally cutting in. He’s still in a good mood and it’s not even noon yet, so he wants to make the most of this pretty November day. “You can both come back to my dorm; Minho bought a new Xbox last weekend and we have yet to play it. I also would rather not be alone when he comes back to the dorm.”

“I’m in.” Thomas says with a smile that inexplicably makes Newt smile in return and causes birds to start chirping even louder around them.

The infectious good mood does not spread to Teresa, however.

“I, uh, thought you maybe wanted to go home. I have a Macro exam tomorrow and I’m in need of a miracle.”

Thomas checks the time on his phone. “It’s only 10:30. We could head back around 3 and still have plenty of time.”

“Actually, that’s okay. I’ll go to the library, I think another guy from my class will be there. He can help me study.” Teresa says, finally looking him in the eyes.

Thomas is quiet for a moment as Newt soaks all of this in. _He really doesn’t see it?_

“Cool, okay. You might want to stay longer then? Text me whenever you’re ready.”

Thomas is so blind to the situation happening right in front of him, Newt could write this into a story for his Psychology class and make it a tragic comedy.

Teresa just stares at him in disbelief, her cheeks slightly pink. “Okay.” 

Without another word, or a goodbye to the both of them, she grabs her things and heads off towards the campus library as if she can’t get away from the two of them fast enough. Newt hates himself for feeling sorry for the girl, fully aware she isn’t looking for his pity.

“Hm. I’m not sure why she wanted to go home so early.”

Thomas finally looks to Newt, who had been watching Teresa’s reaction carefully.

He raises his eyebrows, internally questioning how Thomas could be so _blind_. “You’re asking me? I don’t know, Tommy, I think you’re not seeing the bigger picture here.”

“What bigger picture?”

_He really doesn’t see it?_

This information inexplicably makes Newt smile even wider. “The more time you spend worrying about it, the less time I have to kick your ass at Mario Kart. Ready?”

“Kick my ass? That’s golden from the guy who can barely place _last_!”

They pick up their stuff and start walking side by side off the quad on the path to Newt’s dorm. Falling into casual banter is easy with Thomas. He’s a chill and laid-back guy who always seems to know what to say, or when it’s better not to say anything. He’s extremely sarcastic, which gets annoying coming from most people, but it works for Thomas because he knows when to turn off the sarcasm and revert to serious humor.

At least, all of these good qualities about Thomas make sense in his head. When he tries explaining them out loud to his sister - the only other person besides Teresa whom he thinks is likely to share the same views of Thomas - they don’t make as much sense as they did in his head.

“Do you really think Minho’s going to bring that girl back while you’re in the room?”

Newt almost doesn’t hear Thomas’s question as they approach the Hall A dormitory, he’s so consumed in his thoughts. “Hm, he probably would at least tell me that they’re coming. We already made that mistake last week.”

Thomas throws his head back and laughs, and there’s something about the way the sun shines directly on Thomas’s face that inexplicably makes Newt stumble over his own two feet. “Yeah, I heard about that in Advanced Calculus. I can’t believe you almost had a double orgy.”

“It was not an orgy!” Newt protests rather loudly, attracting the attention of other Hall A boys who give him weird looks as Newt and Thomas wait in front of the lift. 

He and Harriet had been spending _quality_ time together in Newt’s dorm and he stupidly hadn’t thought to ask Minho when he was coming back to the dorm. Minho also stupidly hadn’t thought to ask Newt if he was in the dorm before bringing a pretty girl from one of his classes back with him.

It was a rather awkward way for Harriet to meet Clarissa Lewis, her lab partner in her Bio 101 class, without shirts on.

“Whatever you say.” Thomas says, still laughing ridiculously. “Sonya and I started laughing so hard in class, Janson kicked us out again. Harriet and Minho ended up leaving with us, like idiots. You should’ve come to Starbucks with us, you didn’t have class then, right?”

Newt hates hearing about their Advanced Calculus class but has yet to tell his friends this. He should tell them it makes him feel like an outsider when they talk so vibrantly about this class that he’s not in. Sonya would laugh at him. Minho would tell him to stop being such a shank. He’s not quite sure how Harriet would react but he knows she just wouldn’t _get_ it.

But he’s only known Thomas for the better part of three months. He’s not quite how he’ll react.

“It feels weird.” Newt says without thinking, before he could lose his courage. They hop inside the lift when it finally comes down to the lobby and Newt presses the button that leads to his floor. 

“What feels weird?”

“Like I’m not supposed to be there. Because I’m not in the class so I don’t really understand the inside jokes, because I wasn’t there when they were made, and I never threw a spit-wad at the back of Gally’s head so I feel like an intruder if I start laughing at little things like that. And then if I joined you at Starbucks, I’d feel like even more of a fraud because I was just coming from my dorm room and not from the class with you guys and you’d all be laughing about what just happened to get you kicked out but I would be like such an intruder because I wasn’t there when it happened.” Newt finally takes a breath when the lift stops on his floor and the doors open to let him and Thomas out onto the catwalk. He sighs when he sees the overwhelmed look on Thomas’s face and immediately wants to hurdle himself over the ledge. “I’m sorry. Look, I know it’s stupid and I shouldn’t have brought it up -“

“No, no, no Newt I’m glad you did.” Thomas stops him, grabbing his shoulder. Maybe the brunet has some sort of sixth sense. “Don’t be sorry - _I’m_ the one who’s sorry. I never thought about it like that. And I’m sorry that we haven’t been making you feel included in the jokes. If we’re being honest here, you know, I wish more than anything that you were there. _Especially_ when we’re throwing spit-wads at Gally and his goons. We talk about it, sometimes. How terrible you’d be at it, because you have horrible aim.”

Thomas says this last part with a smirk and Newt can’t help but chuckle, feeling a blush creeping onto his cheeks and gratitude seep into his heart as they make their way into Newt and Minho’s dorm. “Shut up, you bloody bastard.”

 

III.

 

“He’s just dense as fuck.”

Newt rolls his eyes at Minho’s crude language, stabbing into his sushi roll instead of gracefully trying to pick it up with his wooden chopsticks. “Really.”

“He’s been friends with Teresa for what, ten years? And he hasn’t in _all_ this time seen the enormous boner she has for him?” Minho asks doubtfully. “I’m telling you, there’s something wrong with the dude.”

“I think she only just now began to have a crush on him.” Sonya says absentmindedly while scrolling through her phone. She, Newt, and Minho are all having lunch at the sushi bar on campus the day after everyone’s left to go home for Thanksgiving holiday. “Like right around the time we started university.”

“And how do you know that?” Newt asks her.

“Because I actually talk to her.”

Newt rolls his eyes again. “Well, it’s not like she goes out of her way to talk to me either.”

Sonya ignores him and finally puts her phone down. “Minho, guess what happened when we called our parents today.”

Minho doesn’t look interested in playing a guessing game, as he continues devouring his own sushi. “What.”

“You have to guess!”

Minho merely gives her a look of impatience. “My parents are in Venice.”

Newt’s sure that even God is tired of hearing Minho complain about his parents going on holiday without him.

“I might stab you in the eyes if you don’t shut up about that.”

“I might shave off all your hair in the middle of the night if you even try.”

Newt rolls his eyes for the _third_ time in the span of ten minutes, intervening before they can start arguing all day. “Okay, but you’ve got to admit that it’s odd that Tommy hasn’t noticed Teresa’s fancied him.”

Minho groans loudly. “Dude, we’ve been over this -“

“Saying he’s dense as fuck doesn’t mean we’ve ‘been over this’,” Newt protests. “Do you suppose he has feelings for her too?”

Sonya bursts out laughing. “Thomas is a sweet guy, but if he had a crush on Teresa he definitely wouldn’t be this dense or waiting this long to make a move.”

“Let’s face it - poor Teresa has been ruthlessly friend-zoned. And who better to swoop in and save her broken heart than me?” Minho says with a cocky and wicked grin.

“Oh God, Minho.” Sonya shakes her head. “Have some tact with her, won’t you?”

“I’m just saying! She’s beautiful, isn’t she? I bet she’s real smart, too. I saw her in the library the other day, studying alone at one of the tables. She had giant textbooks in front of her but she was actually smiling while reading through them. Interesting, right?”

“Bloody bonkers more like it.” Newt shakes his head but he still feels like he has this itch that hasn’t been relieved yet. “I just don’t understand how he can’t see it. I don’t believe she could be any more obvious about it, practically drooling after him.”

“Why don’t you just ask him about it if you’re so curious?” Sonya frowns.

“Yeah, why are you so curious?”

And truthfully, Newt does not know this answer to this question, either one of those questions. He and Teresa aren’t exactly friends, but he doesn’t think he could expose her secret like that to Thomas since it wasn’t his secret to divulge. All he knows is that he Thomas fascinates him more than most of his peers do and he wants to learn all of his secrets, from his first girlfriend to his favorite color to what he wants to be when he grows up.

Newt doesn’t think it’s _that_ out of the ordinary to be so curious about a friend. Minho’s first girlfriend was Suzy Chang, the same girl who broke his heart four years later. Harriet’s favorite color was red, or a deep maroon. His friend Jack, back in London, wanted to be an engineer when he grew up (at least, that was what he claimed when they were kids but was studying music at Kings College).

It’s completely harmless that he’s so fascinated by Thomas Greene, the pretty boy with very dark hair and honey brown colored eyes. Although he keeps this to himself because he’s somewhat aware that trying to explain this out loud to his best friend and his sister wouldn’t make sense the way it did in his head.

So Newt merely shrugs. “Why not be curious? I’ve known you shanks all my life and I just met the guy.”

Minho drops the topic easily. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Besides, where are we going for Spring Break?”

“Isn’t that like four months away? Anyways, forget about that - I was going to tell you that we called our parents earlier and they said we could come visit you in Nevada over Winter Break.”

This new bit of information makes Minho’s face light up, even if he tries to hide his pleasure. Newt wishes they could have gotten to go to Nevada with Minho right after classes ended for the semester, so that he didn’t have to face his ex-girlfriend and her new bloke by himself. But their parents were adamant on the two of them returning home for the holidays and taking a small vacation to the south of France like they used to as children.

As much as Newt had begun to miss Jane, his feelings were still conflicted towards his father and he knew Sonya still hadn’t tried to forgive him yet. An entire family vacation in one of their favourite holiday places - with _this_ toxic energy between all of them - would ruin his best childhood memories. Suffice to say, he’s not looking forward to it.

“Now all we need is for Harriet’s parents to say yes and it’ll be perfect.” Sonya says, looking back at her phone. Her eyes briefly dart to Newt, who should also be looking at his phone for any communication from Harriet but stares at his sushi instead. The funny thing is - their most recent date went so well. So well, that when they went back to Newt’s empty dorm that night they did more than just delve under the covers and go to sleep. They woke up the next morning happy and in good moods until Harriet wanted to go _out_ and do this and do that and Newt just wanted to stay in bed and watch some old movies before meeting up with their friends to say goodbye. They’d argued tensely before Minho suddenly decided to grace the room with his presence and Harriet could barely get out of the room fast enough, with furiously blushing cheeks.

“It’s gonna be fucking fantastic.” Minho grins with delight, drumming his fingers on the table in front of them. “We’ll eat so much In N Out Burger, you’ll be ruined for weeks.”

The thought crosses Newt’s mind to ask, _What if we invited Thomas with us_? He’s fully aware, however, that it’s not his house who will be hosting all of the extra guests but he’s also fully aware that Minho’s home can house the five of them without posing as a major inconvenience.

But still, he keeps these thoughts in his head as his best friend and his sister plan out their fake-Thanksgiving dinner that upcoming Thursday, reminding them maybe once, maybe twice that Thomas would still be in town for the holidays.

 

IV.

 

“I can’t believe you invited Gally.” Newt whispers to Minho on the night of their fake-Thanksgiving party.

After helping Minho persuade the remaining cafeteria staff to indulge them for one night into having a nice “get-together” for the poor students left behind on campus, they’d set up decorations of cheap streamers and plastic tablecloths. They’d moved the tables towards the walls, except for two right in the center of the room where they’d eat after everyone who Newt, Minho, and Sonya invited had begun to arrive.

Minho sighs as they watch Gally and his minions crowd around a punch bowl, far away from Sonya and the cafeteria staff who have kindly helped prepare some food for the night. “Look. I know for some reason he’s got beef with Thomas, but maybe they can just ignore each other tonight. Besides, if one of his friends were having a party, wouldn’t you want to be invited?”

“No.” Newt says without hesitation.

Minho merely rolls his eyes. “Oh, forget that, you hate our parties anyways. I’m just saying, it doesn’t hurt to be nice every once in a while.”

And so he takes Minho’s advice and tries to be civil towards Gally, towards Jeff, Clint, Aris, and Rachel - all of these people whom he doesn’t know. There’s a pretty girl named Brenda Salazar who sits on the opposite side of the table from him, talking to someone named Frypan - or at least that’s what Newt _thinks_ he’s called.

Sonya, as always, talks loudly and lengthily after everyone’s gathered and they’ve begun to eat, music softly blaring from Minho’s speakers. She holds up most of the conversation around them, but her attention seems to be directed towards another blond guy. 

Everyone finishes eating after an hour or so, and everyone helps the cafeteria staff put the leftover food away before some kids trickle out or some kids start dancing in the middle of the room. Newt finds himself bored easily and dances with some of the girls, smiles at some of the boys. At some point, he pulls out his phone and listens to the voicemail Harriet had left him earlier.

_Hey. Hope you’re having a happy Thanksgiving on campus, even though I know you don’t really care for the holiday. I was going through some of my old things before dinner in my bedroom and I found the empty bottles of Fireball we hid in my closet when the three of you came to visit for the summer a few years back. Remember when Minho made Sonya laugh while she was drinking to take a shot and it all came sloshing out of her nose? I swear, I thought we were laughing so loud at 3 in the morning my parents were going to wake up and ground all of us! It’s one of my favorite memories of all four of us as dumb teenagers. I’ve been missing those days lately. Miss you too, Newt. I’ll talk to you later._

He pulls the phone away from his ear, a small grin peaking at the corners of his lips. Minho had been telling a dumb joke but Sonya was already tipsy enough to laugh at anything Minho laughed at, because the shank found himself hilarious. She snorted the cinnamon whiskey out of her nose and complained for weeks about how her nostrils burned when she blew her nose.

He’s standing by the table where the punch bowl that Gally made was, reminiscing over these happy memories of the four of them when everything was easy and carefree. He’s considering calling her back to remind her of how hard Harriet laughed at Sonya that she literally did the same exact thing thirty seconds later when he feels the rush of cool air against his skin. The chilly November air flies in when someone’s entering or exiting the cafeteria.

Sure enough, Thomas and Teresa have finally made it up to the Glade, saying hi to Minho before moving about the room.

Something about this makes Newt inexplicably as happy as watching Sonya and Harriet laugh so hard, whiskey came out of their noses, and he settles on sending her a text and calling her when there would be more time to talk.

_I’ll call you tonight. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. Hope you know I’m thankful for you_ ❤️

By the time Thomas has finally come over to Newt, the latter has begun to notice something strange about the punch bowl. 

“Gally made it.” Newt explains when the brunet’s standing next to him. “Is American punch normally brown?”

Thomas chuckles darkly. “I don’t think I’d trust it if i were you.”

Newt smiles and is ready to ask him how his dinner with his family was when he’s rudely interrupted. “Who invited this piece of klunk?”

_Goddammit, Minho!_

“Klunk?” Thomas repeats, a frown coming over his face as he turns to face Gally and his oncoming minions.

Newt wants to stop the storm from brewing too tumultuously, he wants to stop this violent crash waiting to happen but he’s almost frozen in place as he watches the scene unfold before him.

“He sure looks like a klunk.” The blond guy Sonya was talking to earlier - Ben, Newt thinks - sneers.

He needs to have a talk with his sister about the kinds of guys she chooses to surround herself with.

“Are you all so stupid that you have to come up with insults nobody understands?”

Newt wants to reach out his hand to Thomas’s shoulder and tell him to _just drop it, Tommy, it’s not worth it._

“Well are you going to be stupid and try to challenge me again, you wimp?”

“It’s nothing more than challenging a baby.”

It all happens so fast that Newt barely has time to realize what’s happening. One second he’s watching Gally and Thomas verbally spar with each other because they’re both stubborn, hot-headed idiots. One second he’s contemplating stepping in-between them before things can get too ugly. One second Gally’s swinging his fist towards Thomas, who ducks like a normal human. One second Gally’s swinging his fist right into Newt’s jaw and the world erupts in searing pain.

“Are you _fucking_ kidding me?” Newt barely hears Minho yell as he rages towards Gally in a thunder of fury. “Did you seriously just punch him in the face?”

Gally had been looking at him with horror in his eyes, his gaze hardening as Minho advances towards him angrily. The music has ceased playing and everyone’s gathered around the group, watching like an audience come to the circus. “Get out of here, Minho. I wasn’t trying to hit Newt, I was trying to hit Thomas!”

“No one told you to hit Thomas in the first place!”

Thomas turns to Newt with horror and pity in his own eyes, his voice soft and husky. “Newt, I am so sorry -“

“It’s not your fault, Tommy.” Newt tries to tell him, holding his swollen jaw gingerly. “I’m bloody glad you had the sense to duck or else he would have flogged you in the eye.”

“Sit down,” Thomas says, guiding him to one of the chairs by the walls and away from Minho and Gally going at it with each other. He wants to tell his best friend that he’ll be okay, to just forget about it because it’s not worth it and Newt might find the proper balls to confront Gally on his own later.

_It doesn’t hurt to be nice._

“You’re going to need ice -“

“Oh dear God, what happened?” 

He hears Teresa’s concerned voice approaching quickly and he tries not to groan. It’s nothing against the poor girl but he’d _really_ rather not be around too many people in his hazy state of pain. Every time he so much as swallows, a feeling of fire flares in the muscles of his lower mouth.

“Gally tried to punch me in the face but ended up crushing Newt’s jaw.” Thomas explains calmly, kneeling down in front of Newt. His eyes are trained solely on Newt. “Can I see it?”

Newt does as he asks and lets Thomas inspect his ugly, swollen jaw, barely noticing Teresa’s eyes bulging in shock. “He tried to punch you? What an asshole!”

Thomas’s face visibly falls, only breaking eye contact with Newt for a mere second. “Teresa could you find us some ice, please?”

She nods, sending Newt a look of pity, before hurrying off to find some ice.

“Is it common knowledge?” Thomas asks quietly. His voice sounds distant against the backtrack of people still chattering and arguing on the other side of the room. “Is it common knowledge that Gally’s little bother died? Don’t speak too much - just nod or shake your head.”

That he can do without _too_ much pain. So Newt slowly shakes his head, remembering Gally’s stoned but miserable demeanor, the way he could barely form complete sentences at the memory of his brother. The way even Alby seemed to have a raincloud over his head and drooped shoulders.

This seems to push Thomas over the edge. Newt witnesses a complete mental snap in the other boy’s eyes as he stares at Thomas while he vents. “So _I’m_ the asshole because I can’t say anything about it. I provoked him! You saw it. I should never have even said a word to him. Now people think Gally’s an asshole because they don’t know the truth.”

Newt wants to smack Thomas upside the head. 

He points to the bottom of his face which he used to be able to move with complete ease, never having appreciated the privilege of a not-swollen jaw bone until it was too late. “Are you saying he’s not an asshole?”

“Well, no but -“

“Tommy, he came over to you int he first place. He knew you have a bit of a temper around him and purposefully insulted you - by the way, klunk means shit. So he, technically, did provoke you first. And sure, you shouldn’t have further insulted him but don’t tell about his brother, okay? That’s his secret, not ours.” 

Newt’s jaw is in so much pain by this point, he feels like the bottom half of his mouth is on fire. He wants to dump his entire head in the waters of the Arctic if only to find reprieve for a short while.

Thomas looks at him with this sort of fond sympathy, still kneeling in front of Newt and keeping their eyes connected. “When I was younger, my father used to take me to the park to play football. He really wanted me to be a professional football player when I grew up. One time, during practice, I was throwing the ball around with another kid, who had far more skill than I did. He aimed at the ball towards me, and executed a perfect toss, but the ball collided with my face. I had a bruised cheekbone for three weeks but my father never understood why I stopped wanting to play football.”

Newt tries to laugh at this story, this small tale from Thomas’s past that could help him put the pieces of this fascinating human puzzle together. He’s so easy to talk to, Newt thinks, wishing he could ignore the circumstances upon which he actually got Thomas to open up to him in the first place.

“What happened?” He suddenly hears Sonya’s voice breaking him out of his reverie, just in time before he did something dangerous - like swoon. “I go to the loo for two minutes and Minho’s screaming at Gally, Teresa’s running around the halls like a mad woman looking for ice, and you’re in the corner injured.”

Thomas carefully recounts the story of what happened, as Newt is in barely any position to be without severe pain medication, Sonya gasping in horror as he gets to the end.

“What a bloody bastard!” She nearly yells loud enough for her voice to carry over the large cafeteria. “I can’t believe how awful he is.”

“But Sonya, I -“

Newt moans loudly before Thomas can even think about finishing his sentence. Later, they can play who’s right and who’s wrong but right now Newt doesn’t want Thomas to feel responsible for this. Not now, not ever. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am literally falling asleep as i type this so i am SO sorry for any typos/awk phrasing. i just really wanted to have this out tonight bc i have been in a major Slump and it's been difficult to write lately. all of the beautiful comments i've been getting on this story and "you were my best four years" (the original story told from thomas's perspective though) have been incredibly motivating and heart-warming. i love and appreciate you all x
> 
> i hope you guys liked this!!! keep in mind i wrote this latter scene almost THREE years ago so there are certain parts about it i'm just wanting to build a time machine to go back and ask my younger self WHAT in the WORLD was i thinking. but it was one of my favorites to rewrite bc it's one of the only chapters i never originally thought of "hmmm what is newt thinking when he does this and thomas reacts this way" 
> 
> im again falling asleep as i type this so leave a comment or kudos if you liked this and i'll be back very soon x


	5. "might as well be civil"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sudden halo appears over Thomas’s body in that exact moment Newt turns to him with wide eyes. “You know Spanish?”
> 
> “Teresa’s father is Portuguese; they speak it at home sometimes. They’ve taught me bits and pieces, so I’m conversational, but I decided I wanted to learn Spanish.”
> 
> “Did you teach yourself?”
> 
> “Yeah. Kinda.”
> 
> He says this so casually, as if he’s just told Newt he’s in the mood for coffee instead of tea. Kinda. Newt’s known Thomas for a while now to know his “kinda” is Newt’s version of “I studied Spanish vocabulary and grammar every night for thirty minutes over the past ten years.”
> 
> He’s bloody brilliant without even being aware of it, Newt thinks, it’s infuriating.
> 
> {december: the one where newt and harriet aren't speaking, where thomas speaks spanish, where sonya makes an announcement, and where newt finds some holiday spirit in unlikely places x}

Newt’s jaw is pretty sore for a while.

It’s hard to chew much other than apple sauce, soup, noodles, and strawberries without constant, searing pain in the side of his mouth. Minho takes pity on him and buys him a week’s worth of Ramen noodles and Korean food for the dorm. Thomas, the bloody bastard still feels guilty and texts him every morning to see if he needs ice or tea or breakfast or more ice or a ride to his classes that are only a five minute walk from his dorm - or ice.

Harriet is sufficiently _pissed_ at Gally when she comes back the Sunday before classes resume after the Thanksgiving holiday.

“He fucking punched you?” She exclaims horrified, inspecting the large purple bruise forming on the side of his face. It’s not a very attractive look, Newt’s aware, but his sister tried to make him feel better by saying it makes him look like a “badass.”

He tries to simmer down her anger by telling her what happened and downplaying how much it actually hurt - but Harriet is still sufficiently pissed.

“You mean this happened on Thanksgiving?! Four whole days ago - and I’m just now finding out about it? God, Newt, are you okay?”

Sonya makes an excuse to flee the room as quickly as possible, Minho following right on her tail despite being this being his own dorm room. Newt remains bedridden, with an ice pack on his swollen jaw and a carton of Applesauce on his nightstand.

Thomas, the bloody bastard, was supposed to be bringing a box of barbecue chicken pizza by his room any minute, in hopes that Newt might be able to nibble on the soft cheese.

He sighs and rubs at his eyes. In all honestly, he didn’t even think about mentioning this to Harriet when he texted her Friday morning after the Incident. 

_Newt: Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving xx_

_Harriet: You too!_ ❤️

“I didn’t want to make you worried for no reason.”

He can hear how weak his argument sounds, despite his strained voice. 

Harriet simply gapes at him. “You’re unbelievable.”

She said that to him the first night after they slept together - but somehow Newt doesn’t think she means it the same way she did back then.

This irritates him in a way he can’t explain and he maturely turns away from her to climb back under his covers. “It’s not like you’re the one who got proper conked in the face.”

He can practically hear Harriet roll her eyes - in the same way she used to behind her mother’s back, when she was being scolded for playing too roughly with Newt and Minho and not doing her chores like she was supposed to. “And who’s fault was that? Why were you even taunting him in the first place?”

“He was trying to clock Thomas in the eye!” Newt says defensively, but a little too aggressively. Harriet merely raises her eyebrow and waits for him to continue. “He came over to us and he was already pissed and just started picking a fight with him.”

“And you couldn’t just walk away?” Harriet asks as if she’s talking to a child, not her boyfriend.

“No, _mum_ , I couldn’t.”

Harriet glares at him before grabbing her jacket off of his bed and turning on her heels. “Never mind the fact that I’m your _girlfriend_ \- the fact that I’m studying to be a nurse didn’t even make you think to call me about the swelling? I would’ve brought an ice pack or something.”

With that, she slams the door behind her and Newt’s aware he’s the one who needs to apologize. But he’s also aware she’s the one who picked a fight with him, getting upset with _him_ for having a bloody swollen jaw.

_(And the fact that he didn’t tell her until she saw him four days later but that’s besides the point)_

He stays out of sorts even after Minho comes back to the dorm, with a large bottle of expensive vodka that they’re “going to shucking drink until they can barely see straight,” even after he has a shower and notices that the bruise on his jaw isn’t as discoloured as it was earlier that morning, even after the sun’s started to set and he can see the burnt orange colors of the sky coming in through his window.

It’s not until Thomas, the bloody bastard, bursts in their door, with a box of cold pizza, beer, and an extra pair of clothes for the night that Newt even cracks a hint of a smile.

_ It still hurts to do much more than that. _

“I’m sorry I’m late, traffic was rough.” Thomas says, nearly out of breath, as he gives Newt a quick hug. “Hope you like cold pizza.”

“Haven’t you heard of these miraculous inventions called microwaves, Tommy?” Newt chuckles, taking the slices of pizza out of the box and just dropping them into the microwave. At home, he would put them on glass plates in order not to get the bottom of the microwave dirty with food grease. But he’s too tired to wash their plates in the Common Room sink since Minho’s taking a shower in their bathroom. “Thanks for stopping by, though."

“It’s literally the _least_ I could do considering I’m the reason you -“

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence.” Newt cuts him off. “I don’t blame you.”

“Yeah, but -“

“We can go back and forth all night about this if you want _or_ I can kick your ass in Overwatch.” Newt proposes with a grin, taking the warmed up pizza out of the microwave and handing a slice to Thomas.

Thomas sighs dramatically, but accepts the slice and slumps down into a sitting position in front of Newt’s bed who starts up the video game console. “You literally suck at Overwatch. If I win, you have to come with me to this business presentation I have to go to for one of my classes.”

“Disgusting. If I win, you have to do my Psychology homework.” 

Newt’s convinced that Thomas is a secret genius, who doesn’t show his intellectual superpower enough. Often times when they play video games together, they raise the stakes by giving the loser the other’s homework assignments to do. By the grace of God a couple of weeks ago, Newt had managed to beat Thomas in Mario Kart and gotten the other boy to write his English essay for him. Newt hadn’t bothered reading over the finished work before handing it in - which in retrospect could’ve been a really fucking bad idea - but he had gotten the paper back with a large “A-“ on top, still in shock at how Thomas managed to score such a feat  _without ever reading the bloody story._

“You’re on.”

 

I.

 

_Newt (12:02): Sorry about yesterday. I should’ve told you sooner._

_Harriet (12:04): Still don’t get why you didn’t. I can stop by later and bring you more ice._

_Newt (12:07): It’s okay, thanks though x_

_Harriet (12:09): Okay x_

_Newt (12:21): Minho and Sonya are ordering pizza to the dorms later. Wanna have dinner here?_

_Harriet (12:29): If that’s what you want._

 

II.

 

He barely admits it to himself, but it gives Newt a weird sense of pleasure that his friends hate their bloody Advanced Calculus class so much.

Sonya’s doing so poor at it she got herself a tutor, even though the others find it suspicious she never asked them for help. Harriet - on more than one occasion - has threatened to not only drop the course, but also drop out of University in general and become a cashier at McDonalds. Despite his excellent physique, during the month of midterms, madness, and mischief Minho has consumed more pizza and vodka than Newt thinks one person should ingest in their entire lifetime while doing his homework for that class.

The only sane person around is Thomas, but even Thomas starts to get a bit wonky when asked about his progress in the class. About a week ago, after binge-watching a collection of Marvel films on Netflix instead of studying for exams, Thomas had drunkenly confided in them that he might have "overreacted” at his academic advisor when asked about Janson.

Harriet threw her head back and cackled, her braids dangling in the air behind her. “I can’t believe you called him a twisted, senile, pile of klunk to his _boss_ and stormed out of the room as if you were in a sit-com.”

Thomas scratches his neck as his friends laugh loudly, his cheeks turning a dusty pink. “He shouldn’t have singled me out in front of the entire class to do a problem _he_ knew was impossible, and then mock me for not paying enough attention and always getting kicked out!”

One night, Newt, Minho, and Thomas were all gathered cozily in the boys' dorm pretending to study for their upcoming midterms while inhaling their tenth box of pizza that week.

Never mind the fact that it was Wednesday.

Never mind the fact that Minho got so wound up, he threw his textbook off of his bed and stole Newt’s wallet to buy another box of pizza. 

Never mind the fact he has more money in his accounts than Newt has in his life’s savings.

“I’d go after him if these Spanish verbs weren’t killing me.” Newt tells Thomas, slowly rubbing his temples above his still injured lower mouth. This night was going to be the death of them.

“You know if you need help with Spanish, _estaría encantado de ayudarle_.”

A sudden halo appears over Thomas’s body in that exact moment Newt turns to him with wide eyes. “You know Spanish?”

“Teresa’s father is Portuguese; they speak it at home sometimes. They’ve taught me bits and pieces, so I’m conversational, but I decided I wanted to learn Spanish.”

“Did you teach yourself?”

“Yeah. Kinda.”

He says this so casually, as if he’s just told Newt he’s in the mood for coffee instead of tea. _Kinda_. Newt’s known Thomas for a while now to know his “ _kinda_ ” is Newt’s version of “ _I studied Spanish vocabulary and grammar every night for thirty minutes over the past ten years._ ”

He’s bloody brilliant without even being aware of it, Newt thinks, it’s infuriating. 

“Kinda? That’s awesome! I can barely make myself do it for a class and you did it all on your own. For nothing, really.”

A dark look crosses over Thomas’s face so briefly, Newt imagines he’s just making it up. “Why are you taking Spanish?”

“Needed the credits. And they didn’t offer the language I took in secondary school.”

“What did you take?”

There’s something touching about Thomas’s overly-inquisitive nature that makes Newt compelled to answer his insatiable questions, even if he’s not quite in the mood to be interrogated. “Ancient Greek.”

Thomas whole-heartedly laughs at him, but Newt’s aware he should be laughed at for doing something so useless. “You took Ancient Greek? Why? Out of all the languages, you took Ancient Greek?”

“Because this bloke, a couple years above me, told me we did nothing in the class. And we didn’t, which was great for me at the time, until I got to University where I actually had to learn a language. We did eat Greek pizza a lot, though.”

Thomas perks up against the foot of Newt’s bed, his interest clearly piqued. “Do you like Greek pizza?”

“Eh, pizza’s pizza.”

“Pineapples on pizza is a sin. Change my mind.”

“I won’t because you’re right. Pepperoni pizza - now that’s something I can get behind.”

“Pepperoni is so boring, though. Be adventurous and try mushrooms, it’s so good.”

Newt doesn’t even try to hide his disgusted face. “I’d rather stick my fingers down my own throat and vomit.”

“Oh please, you’re the one who puts ketchup on everything - even your eggs!”

Newt has a boyish grin on his face as he recalls going to the diner across campus with Thomas the day after Halloween, the latter hungover as fuck. He recalls the look of absolute horror that flashed across Thomas’s face, effectively sobering him up, when Newt poured an ostensibly large amount of ketchup over his scrambled eggs.

Their conversation ranges across all the different kinds of conversations one can have about food until Minho comes back, without a new box of pizza.

“The place was closed. It is 12 am in the morning.” Minho says in response when prompted by Thomas, shrugging his coat off and dropping it by the floor.

“It’s already midnight?” Newt repeats, his abandoned Spanish homework taunting him.

“Yup. I’m going to bed. Thomas, here’s an extra pillow.” Minho tosses one of his pillows, cementing Thomas’s newfound space on the floor. He’s asleep before Newt can even blink or offer Thomas an extra blanket.

“I forgot to ask him about my wallet.” Newt grumbles, standing up on his good leg to hobble over to Minho’s coat. “It’s not even mine, actually. It was my father’s.”

“Why do you hate him?”

Newt pauses immediately, shocked by the sheer force of the question. He’d been wondering for some time now if Thomas had ever cared enough to want to know more about his family - having a few questions of his own regarding Thomas’s - but he can’t say he was expecting it right _now_.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ask, it’s not my business -“ Thomas begins rambling as Newt turns to him slowly, making eye contact.

“You haven’t asked before.” The words, _You ask so many questions on a daily basis, half of the time I want to strangle you but half of the time I want to just talk to you about nothing for hours,_ left unspoken in the air.

“I wasn’t planning on it, I swear, until you felt ready or something. I mean like, if you ever wanted to. Because you don’t have to. It was stupid of me. I’m sorry.”

The wallet in his hands feels like a burden of a weight. “It’s kinda heavy.”

A beat pauses. Thomas nods his head in a casual way, his eyes cast downwards a the floor. “I get it. My father wasn’t exactly father of the year, either.”

And maybe that’s what it is - Thomas’s easygoing nature, his _‘you don’t have to tell me, but if you do, I won’t judge you’_ attitude - that makes Newt open up to him about his rather messed up family at 12:05 on a Thursday morning. While Minho snores in his corner of the room, Newt tells Thomas everything about Jane and Charles and Bridget fucking Skylark and it comes out so easily a small part of him is beginning to become concerned.

It shouldn’t mean _anything_ that often times it’s easier to talk to Thomas than it is to his own girlfriend - because it doesn’t. He doesn’t know Thomas as well as he knows Harriet. It’s easier with Thomas because he’s a fresh slate, a new pair of eyes that don’t remember him with a spiky haircut and striped corduroy trousers he thought was _banging_ back in Year 9.

It doesn’t mean a single thing.

 

III.

 

_Harriet (16:39): Hey. Have to cancel dinner tonight because I’ve got a study group meeting._

_Newt (16:43): The reservation’s at 8:30, though. You were the one who wanted to go?_

_Harriet (16:45): You make it sound like I’m forcing you to go._

_Newt (16:47): That’s definitely not what I’m saying at all_

_Harriet (16:49): It’s what you’re not saying._

_Harriet (16:50): You never even wanted to go so you should be happy._

_Newt (16:52): Harriet, if I never wanted to go I wouldn’t have booked the reservation_

_Newt (16:53): But if you don’t want to go anymore, fine._

 

IV.

 

“Hey, Harriet and I were thinking of going to the library in a couple hours if you want to come. I have a huge paper for my writing class that's due at the end of the week.”

Newt fiddles with his pencil, not making eye contact with his sister. “I think I’ll just stay here with Minho. The library’s too cold.”

He doesn’t even have to look up to know that Sonya and Minho are exchanging knowing glances. 

They’re in the Common Room of Hall A that Sunday afternoon, trying to cram in as much material as they can before exams finally begin on Monday before Winter Holidays. Harriet hadn’t felt “that good” that morning when Sonya came over to join the boys. She had been busy all week studying that she was probably sleep-deprived and needed to rest.

At least, that’s the reason he’s going with of why she and Newt had barely seen each other since the beginning of December.

“You do realize we leave on Saturday, first thing in the morning right?” Sonya presses. “Right after exams end?”

He tries to refrain from throwing his study materials at her so that she might shut up. “Well, I hope you’re packing your things. And I’m not bringing any of your klunk in my suitcases.”

Sonya rolls her eyes. “Why are you such a twit? If I just need an extra pair of shoes to bring home, it’s not like they’re going to take up _that_ much space in your luggage -“

“Why do you insist on annoying me every chance you get? Is that your fucking purpose in life?”

“Why are you such a sensitive little fucker -“

“I swear to God, can you two shanks make it through an _hour_ without pissing each other off?” Minho snaps at them, throwing kernels of discarded popcorn in their direction. “This is the third dumb fight you’ve had in the past twenty minutes and I’m already sick of your voices.”

Sonya snorts, looking Newt in the eyes. “As if listening to him moan and groan about his professors is any better.”

“It’s like Aunt Josephine playing her Christmas gospels that no one wants to listen to and everyone is too polite to tell her shut up.”

Sonya chuckles. “Remember when Abigail -“

“You guys are more annoying when you’re getting along than when you’re fighting. I need air.” Minho announces, dropping his business textbooks on the bean bag chair and promptly walking out of the Common Room. 

Sonya bites her lip and sighs. “Fuck. I forgot about how stressed he is over seeing Suzy this weekend when he goes back home.”

“He should just avoid her. And her new bloke. If my ex had a new boyfriend right after we broke up, I’d never want to see her again.”

Newt isn’t thinking about anyone in particular _at all_ but Sonya still gives him a strange look.

“What?”

She shakes her head and moves on. “Stop by after you’re done studying for the night, will you? We still have to ring mum and arrange our travel plans home from Heathrow.”

Sonya leaves to study with Harriet at the library a little while after that. Minho comes back to the Common Room eventually with his arms full of sour gummy words, peach rings, chocolate bars, and soda bottles.

“Look what I got.”

“Are you trying to give us diabetes?”

“I’m trying to get us _motivated_. We’re going to need all the energy we can get if we’re going to power through -“

A burst of cold air rushes in when the Common Room door opens, and suddenly Gally and his goons have stopped cackling at whatever they were cackling at to stare at the scene in front of them. 

Newt’s hand instinctively touches his jaw, now almost fully healed and fully mobile again. Gally’s eyes instinctively look towards the ground.

Gally, Ben, Winston, and Zart all trickle into the room awkwardly, taking over the opposite side. Newt and Minho stare at all the snacks on the table between them.

Newt looks up, making eye contact with his best friend. _What’s the move?_

Minho raises his eyebrow. _Your call._

The morning after the Thanksgiving Incident, Gally had come by their dorm while Minho was sleeping to make a formal apology. Despite their reservations towards each other, and considering what they know about each other, they can’t _hate_ each other. And while Newt doesn’t understand Gally’s innate need to piss Thomas off of the planet and Gally doesn’t understand why Newt doesn’t understand this, the most they can be is civil towards each other. Acknowledge the other only in dire situations. Preferably not punch each other in their jaw bones. 

It’s that Ben creature that really gets under Newt’s skin. 

_He’d been eyeing her all night and now it looks as if he’s got what he wanted._

Minho’s still raising his eyebrow at Newt.

Well.

Gally’s very much not his proper mate. At least, he won’t have to worry about seeing that Ben kid around much after this. Might as well be civil. 

Newt reaches over to the plastic bags by Minho and unwraps a package of sour gummy words, breaking the itchy silence in the room. “My Psychology exam is gonna kick me in the arse.”

 

V.

 

_Newt (08:31): Can’t get coffee this morning. Running late._

_Harriet (09:01): K_

_Newt (09:05): Another time?_

_Harriet (09:10): “Another time” seems to be a common theme with us these days_

_Newt (09:13): I’m sorry_

_Harriet (09:45): Me too._

 

VI.

 

_“I be up in the gym, just working on my fitness - he’s my witness!”_ Minho croons along to Fergie as she sings about how Fergalicious she is over their speakers in the room the Friday morning before everyone is set to leave. After Minho had gathered enough underwear to last him for a month, he closed his suitcase and began doing crunches in the corner. Newt was trying to be more proactive and fold all of the winter clothes he think he needed into one half of his suitcase and seeing how many of his favorite books and video games he could fit into the other.

Thomas, blessedly, had been overcome by boredom and hadn’t wanted to head back home even though Teresa had left hours earlier. She had been hoping for a ride it seemed from Thomas, and was very much not interested in spending more time on campus. Since Thomas elected to stay another night with Newt and Minho in their dorm before driving back to his mother's home the next day, she’d found transportation from someone else, at least kindly saying goodbye to them before leaving.

Thomas laughs along at Minho, who keeps trying to mimic the ridiculous choreography from the floor. “You’re ridiculous.”

Newt rolls his eyes as he stuffs another layer of jumpers into half of his suitcase. “He’s been singing this _all_ morning. I might strange myself with that extension cord over there in the corner.”

“Do you think you’re going to need that?”

“Nah, but thanks for helping, Tommy. You didn’t have to.”

“Yeah, _Tommy_. You didn’t have to.” Minho repeats, having begun doing his crunches again. “What are you doing here anyways, is there a party going on tonight?”

Thomas shrugs, his cheeks slightly rosy. “Not that I’ve heard of. You’re the one who usually hears of these things.”

“Let’s get laid tonight.”

Thomas bursts out laughing. “Like that’s gonna happen. Campus is a ghost town.”

He picks up a stray one of Newt’s sock from the foot of the bed and holds it up. “Newt, do you have the other -“

Sonya barges in then, her hair wild from the wind outside and her skin pale from the cold. “I’m dating Ben.”

“-sock?” Thomas finishes after a moment of heavy silence. A moment of heavy staring between Sonya and Newt, Sonya and Thomas, Sonya and Minho, Minho and Thomas. 

“ _Ben_ Sheffield? You’re bloody dating Ben Sheffield? Sonya, are you mad?”” Newt exclaims in frustration, still making eye contact with his sister. _You’re doing this to annoy me, aren’t you. You are purposefully dating Ben Sheffield, the right hand man of the one person who hates Thomas enough to punch him in the face but accidentally end up socking me in the jaw._

“Are you?” She asks, crossing her arms over her chest defiantly. It’s not like she ever needed Newt’s _permission_ to date somebody - they both know she's here to tell him before he finds out through the grapevine.

“Yes!” Newt blurts out. “He’s a bastard! The worst of them, he … he -“

“He what, Newt?” Minho decides to helpfully interject. Sonya waits patiently for him to say something.

_He’d been eyeing her all night and now it looks as if he’s got what he wanted._

“He’s - he’s a friend of Gally, who nearly broke my jaw if you don’t remember.” Newt stutters. 

_Does she not remember that bloke from Christmas Ball? Who rented a hotel room, instead of tickets for the ball? And then left her in said hotel room when she wouldn’t give into what he wanted?_

“ _Gally_ broke your jaw, Newt. _Gally_ shoved Thomas across a classroom, nearly giving him a concussion. _Gally_ is the one you don’t like, the asshole. Ben’s not like that. He’s sweet, he’s charming -“

_“- He’s really handsome, isn’t he? I think he really likes me.” She had told Newt, her eyes lighting up as she showed him dresses for Christmas Ball she wanted to buy._

“He’s _Ben_! Harriet said he had bedroom eyes all over you at the Halloween party!”

“Who said _I_ didn’t have bedroom eyes all over _him_?” Sonya argues, rolling her eyes. Her gaze turns a bit sinister as she asks, “And tell me, how _is_ Harriet by the way?”

Newt falls silent.  She didn’t _have_ to stoop _that_ low. He's only trying to protect her.

Minho recognizes this. “Sonya.”

She’s never been one to step down _that_ easily from a challenge. “Minho.”

Suddenly, Thomas’s voice is whispering in his ear and suddenly, his body is very close. “Hey, Newt. Think of it this way; now you have an excuse to kick his ass.”

He tries not to. He really tries not to start to smile, but he can’t help it. There’s something ridiculously funny about the mental image of Newt’s scrawny frame trying to kick Ben’s arse and soon he can’t keep the bubbles of laughter from escaping.

“But, um, Harriet’s, uh, right, Newt.” Thomas stutters just as quickly. “And I’m not taking sides, I promise! Sonya is a big girl. You have to let her live.”

_There are some places Sonya’s going to go where you just can’t follow her, Isaac._

Newt exhales a loud breath, before looking at Thomas. “I _suppose_ you’re right.”

She is his older sister, technically. His older half-sister by three months. He turns to her and says with sarcasm dripping heavily in his voice, “I give you my blessings, dear sister.”

Sonya smirks, throwing her arms around Newt’s neck and trying to kiss him on the cheek. “Aw, my little brudder is giving me his blessings!”

Newt’s too busy trying to pry this creature off of him, hiding his own smile and amusement, to notice a curious pair of eyes flickering back and forth between him and Thomas.

 

VII.

 

_Harriet (08:15): Have a safe flight <3_

 

He reads the message in the airport, as he and Sonya are getting ready for take-off at the gate. Sonya’s distracted by her phone messages with Ben to nag him too much. 

He first types out, _Thanks, call me when you land x,_ but deletes it when he realizes they would have to acknowledge the last time they had spoken was nearly three weeks ago.

So he tries again, _Thanks, hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas x_ , before he realizes it sounds like he’s trying to avoid speaking to her for the rest of Christmas Holidays. 

He agonizes over a response, typing and deleting his messages until Sonya nudges him in the elbow and points to the forming by the exit door. “Hey. We’re about to start boarding.”

After they’ve gotten settled in on the plane at their seats, he takes out his phone to write a short reply before locking it in Airplane Mode.

 

_Newt (08:57): You too x_

 

VIII.

 

Their first dinner together as a family for the first time in four months is sufficiently so awkward, Newt agrees to go out for drinks with his sister and her friends afterwards.

Their mum cooks all of their favorites - ham, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, steamed vegetables. Their dad opens a new bottle of Pinot Noir and Sonya relents into telling them about her new boyfriend.

“Do you know him well, Newt?” Mum asks in-between bites of vegetables.

Newt scoffs and Sonya rolls her eyes as they both answer at the same time, “No.”

Dad raises his eyebrows. “What kind of family does he come from?”

“ _Dad_ ,” Sonya whines.

“What? Do his parents work?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“We’ve just started getting to know each other.”

Dad turns to Newt with that suspicious frown. “Is this true?”

Newt shoves his mashed potatoes into his mouth. “I plead the fifth.”

“What are you hiding?”

“Nothing!” Sonya answers a bit too aggressively. Their parents turn to her in surprise and Newt continues chewing his mashed potatoes. “Can’t we talk about Harriet and Newt -“

“ _No_.”

No one talks about relationships for awhile.

After dinner, their mum has them wash the dishes and their dad indulges the family in watching a Christmas movie before promptly snoring. Not soon after, Sonya announces that she’s going to get ready and head to The Royal Oak.

“You coming?” Sonya asks him before heading up the stairs to reapply her make-up and change into proper heels and jeans. 

He really dislikes Sonya’s best mate, Elizabeth Bennet, and doesn’t want to spend almost 50 pounds on liquor tonight but he also has no desire to stay home with his mum and dad talking about Sonya’s new relationship or his … less than successful one.

So he goes up the stairs and into his old childhood bedroom, relishing his old comforter and duvet and his old wooden desk filled with his favorite comics and video games. The old film posters he’d gotten from the cinema as a child and hung up all over his ceiling. He misses being home.

As he starts to change into new jeans and a clean shirt, his cell phone starts to ring and Minho’s face starts to appear on his screen.

He accepts the FaceTime without hesitation, not caring he’s still shirtless. “So what’s the verdict?”

“Are you trying to seduce me right now, Newton?” 

Newt rolls his eyes and puts on his striped button-up. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“The verdict is Suzy and her new boyfriend are very happy together.” Minho’s face finally comes into focus and Newt can see just how rosy red his cheeks are, despite the bright blue sky. He’s sitting outside in his mother’s garden in Nevada, a beautiful display of pink and yellow roses behind him. “It’s disgusting.”

“What even makes you think that they’re happy together?”

“Because she came over to my house and said that they were happy together and that she hopes I find happiness too.”

Newt groans and lies back on his bed. “That was sort of a dick move.”

“Tell me about it.”

Sonya barges her head in at that moment. “Hey, are you ready to - is that Minho? How did it go? Is he ugly?”

Minho shrugs indifferently, a clear sign that he is not feeling indifferent to the matter. “They’re very happy together. She came over to my house and said that they were happy together and that she hopes I find happiness too.”

“Oh, that’s bloody hideous of her!” Sonya exclaims, coming into Newt’s room and lying on his bed next to him. She reeks of her favourite Chanel perfume. “I can’t believe I let her borrow my lipstick the last time we came to visit you.”

“I’ll get over it. Where are you two heading anyways?”

Newt’s about to tell him the truth, but Sonya cuts him off before he can even open his mouth. “We just got back from dinner with our parents. It was bloody awful. I was about to FaceTime Harriet, actually. Let’s do a three-way Skype call?”

“Wait, let’s call Thomas too.” Newt suggests before Minho can say anything. “He should be home by now, right?”

Sonya shrugs and brazenly goes to his desk to pick up his laptop. “I’ll start the call. Minho, can you text Thomas -“

“Who said you could touch my shit?”

“Who said I give a shit what you think?”

“You fucking narcissistic lazy sod -“

“ _Mum_ , _Newt just called me a narcissistic lazy sod_ -“

“Dear _God_ , do you two ever shut up?” Harriet pleasantly greets them as her face comes onto the screen on Newt’s computer. Newt’s heart contracts painfully but she smiles at him warmly, as she would if they were on perfectly good terms. The last time Newt checked, they weren't. “Sometimes I wish I could lock you two in a closet until you learn to just hug it out and move on.”

Sonya scoffs and suddenly throws her arms around Newt as if he hadn’t just called her a narcissistic lazy sod, in a bone-crushing hug that he does _not_ wish to be a part of. “See? We get along.”

“When you feel like it.” Suddenly Thomas’s face pops up on Skype and Newt finally pries his sister off of him. “Most of the time you two are like rabid canine dogs, foaming at the mouth.”

“Alright, that’s a bit graphic -“

“It’s so true.” Minho cuts Newt off, suddenly sipping a glass bottle of beer from a plastic straw. “Sometimes I think I want a brother to mess around with and blame shit on when my parents find my secret stash of weed, but then I look at you two and I’m normal again.”

Newt exchanges a look with his sister as Thomas and Harriet roll their eyes at Minho and taunt him. She is definitely the most narcissistic lazy sod he knows, but he has no idea how he would have survived the past four months without her - let alone the last eighteen years. He leans into hug her again, ignoring the “ _aww”’s_ from Harriet and Thomas and the _“I just got this bottle of beer but now it’s almost empty and I’m too lazy to get up and get another one, do you think I should just order UberEats and have a hamburger delivered to my house?”,_ ignoring the awful Chanel perfume wafting off of her.

She, the two people on his screen, and even the two people down below his feet, are his favourite Christmas presents of all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whewwww we got so much content today!!! this chapter is dedicated to Dylan O'Brien, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Kaya Scodelario, Ki Hong Lee, Dexter Darden, Will Poulter, Rosa Salazar, Nathalie Emmanuel, Katherine McNamara, Jacob Lofland, Wes Ball, T.S Nowlin, and co who made such a SPECTACULAR film. The Death Cure was everything I wanted and more - and so were the bloopers + deleted scenes!
> 
> what did you guys think of this chapter? in honor of National Siblings Day, I thought it would be nice to focus in on Newt and Sonya's relationship more and their complicated history with their parents. and then start exploring the complexities of their friendships with Harriet, Thomas, and Minho. this chapter is kind of a filler, as things really start to pick up in the next one x
> 
> let me know if you liked this, what you hope to see in future chapters, or what about the first story you might hope to see in this one :) thank you all for being such wonderful readers
> 
> come find me on tweeter: happydyIan (uppercase i, not lowercase l!) or tumblr: ourlovelybones x
> 
> sidenote,  
> do you ever have someone in your life who inspires you? who moves you more than anyone has moved you in years? makes you think about things differently and with more of an open mind? someone who's compassionate and kind and funny and interested in you, that makes you feel noticed for once. or appreciated? in a situation like this, the lines between an infatuation vs. a crush vs. genuinely wanting to be their friend becomes blurry. you tell yourself that you don't want this story to end, you just want to be their friend because that's safe. you're not so vulnerable that way and you have a reason to keep this person close to you, to pick at their brain, and learn the secrets of their soul. even if your heart clearly feels differently, you tell yourself being friends is good enough and all you want.  
> for me, this is how i think newt feels about thomas. right now :)


	6. the one with all the talking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m having a dates-only Valentines Day party next week. You’re welcome!” Minho explains, holding up his arms in the air as if he’s expecting applause.
> 
> Newt just frowns. “What?”
> 
> {the one in february where newt and thomas have many talks, newt and harriet have one important talk, and newt feels new feelings}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> helloooooo <3 i am SO sorry about the long wait for this chapter, i hope the content makes up for it. thank you guys for being so patient and to the kind souls who've reached out to me on twitter. thankful that you guys are still around! x

“Alright, I have news for you all.” Minho announces to the gang after they’ve just finished ordering their first round of drinks. They’re at the only bar close to campus that accepts their fake I.Ds on a Thursday night, completely procrastinating on all of their upcoming exams.

Thomas groans, sitting next to him and Teresa, who decided to join them all for once, across the table. “Minho, you already told us about the girl you fucked in the chemistry lab and how you almost got caught but you didn’t because you’re a ‘fucking genius’ yesterday.”

“That’s not what I was going to say, dumbass.” Minho rolls his eyes before grinning at the rest of them. “But I am impressive, right?”

Harriet rolls her eyes this time. “Please tell me this isn’t why you made us get all dressed up to come to a _bar_.”

“I’m having a dates-only Valentines Day party next week. You’re welcome!” Minho explains, holding up his arms in the air as if he’s expecting applause.

Newt just frowns. “What?”

“Valentines Day is coming up.”

“Yes, I know that. It’s always two weeks after Sonya’s birthday.”

Sonya grins. “Wasn’t my birthday really fun this year? We should always celebrate at the mall.”

_Preferably without that giant lump you call your boyfriend_ , Newt thinks in his head. 

“So next week to celebrate, I’m hosting a couples-only Valentines Day party.” Minho finishes explaining. “It’ll be real sexy, with dimmed lights and only fancy alcohol and sexy music.”

“Sounds wholesome.” Thomas remarks drily, earning him a slap upside the head from Minho. Teresa looks at him in concern, but doesn’t say anything.

“Oh, that’ll be so cute!” Sonya exclaims, as the waiter comes back with their round of drinks. “Ben and I will definitely be coming.”

Newt rolled his eyes. Someone’s eyes were going to get stuck to the top of their head. “No one wants that twit there.”

“Speak for yourself, arsehole.” Sonya snapped at him before turning to the rest of the group. “You guys want Ben to come right?”

Harriet, Minho, and Thomas all turn their heads in opposite directions, suddenly interested in the lighting of the restaurant and in their drinks. Poor Teresa just smiles at Sonya and shrugs, having never met the kid.

“I can’t believe you guys! He’s my boyfriend and I really, really like him.”

“He’s so fucking annoying,” Harriet complains, her head in her hands. “I’m sorry, Sonya, but there is nothing intelligent that ever comes out of that boy’s mouth.”

“Yeah, how is he actually passing Calculus right now?” Thomas frowns.

“How is he actually in college right now?” Minho quips even further. Sonya throws a napkin at him across the table.

“He’s really smart! You guys are just mean to him and make him nervous.”

Thomas gives her a look of incredulity. “Sonya, I’m the nicest one in this entire bunch and even _I_ can’t tell you one decent thing about his brain. When we were at the mall for your birthday and he was on his phone, I asked him what he was studying and he actually said, ‘Oh I’m not studying. I’m just reading this email from my dad.’”

Harriet bursts out cackling. “Any guy who actually _likes_ Janson is obviously a dud.”

Sonya elbows her and crosses her arms over her chest. “Well, he’s coming with me whether you like it or not. And by the way, Harriet, let’s go shopping on Saturday for outfits. We can go back to Macy’s and look out at those dresses again - oh Teresa, do you want to come? You can call an Uber with us from campus.”

And as Teresa politely tells her that she already has plans this weekend, a brilliant, fool-proof idea comes into Newt’s head on how to get Harriet the best Valentines Day gift ever.

 

I.

 

“Absolutely not.”

Somehow, Newt knew Thomas was going to say that.

The brunet paces back and forth in front of his bedroom in his dorm later the next day, his arms waving frantically in the air about how this was _immoral_ and _completely an invasion of privacy_ and _just plain ridiculous, why don’t you ask her yourself what she wants for Valentines Day, Newt?!_

Minho, on the other hand, seemed indifferent to the matter.

“Eh, why not.” He had said when he and Thomas had gotten back from their Advanced Calculus class and Newt approached them with the subject. Ever since the gang had come back from Winter Break over a month ago, Minho had been obsessed with sculpting his already perfect body into an even more perfect body. Every afternoon before they would head to the dining hall or some cheap restaurant for dinner, he would do 100 push-ups in the corner of his room by the TV. Today, was no exception.

Newt sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. “Come on Tommy, it’s not _that_ big of a deal -“

“Well, if it’s not _that_ big of a deal, then why don’t you just ask her yourself?”

Somehow, Newt _knew_ Thomas was going to say that.

Thomas Greene is something of an enigma to Newt. He’s incredibly smart - but even more incredibly oblivious. He keeps his opinions and his thoughts to himself most of the time, but he’s the most outspoken person Newt knows when it comes to politics and human justice. There is so much about in his brain that Newt wants to pick at until he knows the pretty boy, from his first girlfriend to the reason why he commutes every morning to school with his best friend rather than living on campus with the rest of them.

But he figures this is an inappropriate time to ask those questions, while he’s asking said pretty boy to stalk his own pretty girlfriend to find out what gift he should give her for the upcoming holiday of romance.

“What, you got something better to do tomorrow afternoon?” Minho asks, finally standing up from all of his mini-exercises on the ground. He stretches and his tank top slides up his stomach, revealing his perfectly sculpted and toned abs.

Newt slightly hates how easy it is for him to turned his body into that of a Greek god. He’s all bones and pale skin, but Minho’s perfect in every single way - it’s no wonder he has a new girl in the dorm every week.

Thomas sighs and finally stops pacing. “She’s going to catch us.”

“She’s not going to catch us.”

“How do you know that?”

“How do you know that she will?”

This catches Thomas off-guard, who can’t quickly come up with a valid retort, but Minho takes this as Thomas finally seceding to the plan. “Great. So meet me here on Saturday and you’ll drive us over to the mall where we’ll spy on Harriet and Sonya to figure out what Newt should get her for Valentines Day.”

Thomas turns to Newt with an _are you really going to make me do this?_ kind of expression.

Newt pushes for a small smile. “Please, Tommy?”

Thomas merely rolls his eyes in return, sighing as Newt and Minho give small cheers of excitement. “I still think this is going to blow up in our faces.”

 

II.

 

It does _kind_ of blow up in their faces. 

Sonya and Harriet did catch Thomas and Minho at the mall, but Thomas, who’s usually known for being a terrible liar, somehow managed to talk his way out of it. Minho had sent him a picture of the earrings that Harriet had been eyeing, and Newt had been all ready to take some money out of his account and purchase them for her until -

“She bought the earrings herself.” Thomas tells him the Monday before Valentines Day when they meet up outside of the library on campus. 

They’re sitting on a bench outside in the February weather because Newt’s leg had started aching again and he was tired of walking. He felt terrible about making Thomas sit outside in the cold but Thomas had assured him he was used to the weather and they sat for a moment in silence, until Newt had an idea.

“Do you suppose - “

“I’m not going to stalk her again.” Thomas declares before Newt can even finish the rest of his sentence. 

Newt laughs a little, looking at Thomas directly in the eyes. “You should have told me that. I would’ve used it for a better purpose.”

Thomas smiles too but averts his eyes to the ground. “What are you going to do?”

And isn’t that a good question? He’d been hoping to get her a proper and nice Valentines Day gift, a beautiful pair of earrings that she would really like, but his girlfriend had unknowingly squashed and thwarted his genius plan before he could and now he was back to nothing.

“She’ll love whatever you get her.” Thomas says supportively, but Newt, himself, isn’t so sure about that.

“But will she? I don’t - I don’t really know what she likes.”

“You’ve been dating her since the beginning of the school year,” Thomas reminds him with a frown. “What do you mean you don’t know what she likes?”

_I know she secretly likes watching cartoons on Saturday mornings with her mother and that before university, she and her father would go out to someplace called the Cheesecake Factory once a month for dinner. I know the little things - like she’s scared of tarantulas, but she’ll hold spiders in the palms of her hands to scare Sonya. Like how she’ll put whipped scream and maple syrup on her pancakes, but she’ll only put butter on her waffles._

Those weren’t really tangible items he could get her for Valentines Day, though.

“What did you get her for her birthday?” Thomas tries asking.

_Drunken sex?_

“Well, that’s the thing. We got together the day _after_ her birthday.”

“Okay. What did you do for Christmas?”

“Well,” Newt tries to recall. The holidays weren’t _that_ long ago, but he’s having trouble remembering anything before the second semester of classes started. “I think I gave her a pendant. A peridot pendant.”

“So what did you do? Did you take her out?”

_Here he goes with the insufferable interrogation again_ , Newt thinks silently but frowns as he tries to recall the last parts of first semester.

“I was in London.”

“But before you left. Did you do anything romantic with her?”

_They weren’t speaking much then_ , he remembers.

“Newt, do you even like her?”

_No, I don’t like her. But yes, I do love her. Do you understand?_

Newt plays with his fingers, sighing loudly. “I do like her. I like her as a friend. And I’ve always liked her as a friend.”

The friend he used to join forces with when Minho and Sonya were being annoying back in primary school - on the rare occasion all of their families had been on the same continent at the same time. The friend who used to wear tie-dye t-shirts and neon green Crocs, who would race down him down the street on her scooter screaming at the top of her lungs. 

“Can I ask you something?” Thomas has the nerve to ask, as if he hasn’t already given Newt the third degree about his crumbling relationship. 

“You’ve already asked me eight questions, I don’t see what’s stopping you.”

Confusion etches onto Thomas’s face. “No, I’ve only asked you six.”

“You’ve asked me eight. I counted.”

“I counted, too.”

_And it’s just that easy for the irritation to slip out of Newt’s tense shoulders, Thomas’s insufferably inquisitive nature overruled by his endearing charm._ “No, you didn’t. Not until I told you. You asked me eight questions.”

“Yes I did. I asked you could you not know what she likes, what you got her for her birthday, what you did for Christmas, did you do anything romantic with her, do you even like her, and can I ask you something. That was only six.”

It’s getting harder and harder for Newt to contain his smile at this infuriatingly delightful person. “You also asked me what did I _do_ and if I took her out.”

“I already said that.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Yes I did.”

“No, you bloody didn’t. And I counted eight questions. I’m right.” Newt crosses his arms over his chest, stubbornly. 

“You’re literally a two year old.” Thomas chuckles. “I asked six questions.”

“No, you asked eight.”

“Six.”  
“Eight.”

“If I say eight, can we order a pizza to your dorm?” 

_And damn everything to hell, if Newt even_ _tried_ _saying no to those puppy dog brown eyes, glinting perfectly under the sunlight._ Newt stands up, hoping to hide his smile - and shift his weight over to his good leg that’s not aching. “If you say I’m right, I’ll even charge it on Minho’s credit card.”

“Deal.” Thomas follows him as they start making their way back to Newt’s dorm room, the walk quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry I ask too many questions.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Newt hears himself saying before he’s even registered _what_ he’s saying. “I don’t mind them all when it’s you.”

He’s the one who said those words, yet _he’s_ the one suddenly confused why his heart is _fluttering_.

“You should talk to Harriet, Newt.” Thomas adds, almost shyly. 

_I should have talked to her a long time ago._ “I know.”

 

III.

 

“Can you fucking believe this bullshit?! That dick had the fucking nerve to hold a fucking _dates-only_ party the _same_ night as mine!”

Newt barely has time to blink before the force that is Minho barges into their dorm room. Newt can swear there’s smoke billowing out of his best friend’s ears.

“Whoa, whoa - what’s going on?”

“Gally! That giant-sized horse is hosting a party the same night as mine!”

Newt’s not quite sure _what_ makes this so different from all the other times other freshmen guys have held parties the _same_ night as Minho’s, but he’s not entirely fond of Gally and his goons - as Harriet so affectionately calls them - and feels like getting mad, too.

“Yeah, how fucking dare he?” Newt stands up and pushes aside his mundane Spanish homework. “He should know that’s off-limits.”

Minho rolls his eyes and stomps into the bathroom. “You know, almost 20 people have already told me they want to come to my party. And since it’s dates-only, that means there could be _40_ people.”

Newt looks cautiously around their dorm room - already bigger than most but definitely _not_ equipped to host _40_ people. “Oh. Yeah, that’s a lot.”

“We’re going to need a lot of alcohol.” Minho mutters, coming right back out of the bathroom with his hair freshly gelled. “And a lot of fucking pizza. I’ll be right back.”

Minho’s courteous enough not to slam the door on his way out, but Newt can still feel the aggressive energy he left behind. 

And he doesn’t feel like putting it towards his Spanish homework so he grabs his jacket and storms out of his dorm too and over to Dorm B, where his sister should have just gotten back from her night class. 

He knocks loudly on the door, calling her name. _“_ Sonya!”

She opens it, with her hair piled in a messy bun on top of her head and her phone pressed against her ear. She even has the nerve to put her finger to her lips. “I’m on the phone, what do you want?”

“To talk to you about that!” Newt barges into her room without asking, relieved that he knows Harriet’s schedule well enough to know that she’s not back at the dorm yet. “Mum rang me earlier this afternoon and told me to tell you to knock it off. Our phone bill’s astronomical at this point.”

Sonya rolls her eyes at him. “Yeah, that’s just my brother. I’ll talk to you later, baby? Okay. Sounds good. Bye.”

She makes kissing noises before she hangs up and Newt has the urge to vomit all over her bed. “Well, it’s not my fault she refuses to get us a reasonable phone plan that has international coverage.”

“It’s _your_ fault that you choose to talk to your dumb boyfriend for over five hours every night when you could just go to his dorm and rack up our phone bill.”

“Don’t call him dumb! He’s truly a wonderful guy if you would _just take a chance to get to know him -“_

“Sonya, how many times are we going to go over this? I _tried_. For your sake! I tried to having a conversation with him and he’s as enlightening as a door knob!”

“You just intimidate him!”

“ _I_ intimidate _him_? His best friend proper clocked me in the face and I had a bruise for _weeks_ but oh sure, he’s intimidated by me?”

“Newt, if you would just be nicer to him -“

“If you would just not date him -“

“Oh, you are the worst!” Sonya groans loudly _just_ as Harriet unlocks their door and walks in.

Time stands still for a moment. Maybe an eternity. An itchy blanket of silent tension fills the room.

Harriet finally closes the door behind her and drops her backpack onto her bed. “So. I’m sure half the floor heard you two arguing - per usual. Why’s he the worst now?”

“Newt’s trying to tell me how to live my life!” Sonya accuses Newt, pointing in his direction as if Harriet forgot who he was. “All I ask is that he put some more effort towards being nicer to Ben and he _won’t_.”

“Why doesn’t _Ben_ try putting more effort into being nicer to _us_?” Harriet rolls her eyes and starts taking her notebooks out of her backpack and putting them on her desk.

In any normal situation, Newt would pump his arm in the air and yell, _thank you!_ But for some reason, he’s glued to being silent.

Sonya rolls her eyes right back and huffs. “Well, it’s not easy trying to be friendly with four people who irrationally can’t stand you.”

“Hey! Thomas has his own beef with Gally and his goons, as you see every other day in Advanced Calc.”

“Okay, but at least Thomas _tries_. You three don’t!”

“Thomas actually likes you. We three tolerate you.”

In any normal situation, Newt would throw his head back and cackle loudly, pumping fists with Harriet, s _ick burn!_ But for many reasons, he’s glued to his silent, frozen stance in the middle of their room.

“You three are the worst.” Sonya shakes her head and pulls out a package from her desk. “But anyways, now that you’re back, do you want to put on a face mask while we drink wine and watch Gossip Girl?”

“Actually Harriet, do you want to take a walk?”

Even Newt’s surprised to hear the sound of his own voice and his own two feet walking him towards the door.

 

IV.

 

“Yeah, but strawberries are the superior fruit. They’re just the right amount of juicy and sweet. Watermelons taste like pure water.”

Harriet shakes her head. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Watermelons taste like … well, watermelons. Cantaloupe tastes like water.”

“What kind of drugs are you on?”

“The kind you should get on, you prick, instead of the ones that make you think strawberries are actually superior to watermelons.”

They’ve been walking around the campus quad for the past half an hour, avoiding the topic they knew they needed to talk about but neither of them wanted to talk about. After walking in silence for almost ten minutes and walking by the cafeteria, Newt had commented on his lunch earlier that day and their heated discourse about fruit had begun.

He lets the silence linger between them for a few more minutes, hoping he’ll somehow magically gain the strength to talk about the important stuff.

“Are you happy?”

The question throws him off-guard and he stops walking for a moment. “Sorry?”

“Are you happy?” Harriet repeats, sitting down on the nearest bench and folding her legs. “With us. With this.”

The problem is, he doesn’t know how to say what he’s feeling without sounding like a dick.

“So then sound like a dick.” She chuckles lightly when he voices his concerns out loud. “Just say what you feel.”

Newt stares down at his feet. “I am happy to be here in the States, with you guys. All together for once.”

“Same.”

“And I’m happy that we see each other everyday instead of once every six months.”

“Same, same.”

Newt sighs, still trying to control his words from making him sound like a dick. “But … I don’t think I am happy, you know. When it comes to us anymore.”

Harriet sighs, too. “Same.”

It’s dark and the moon is high in the sky, shining in her glory, which makes it a little easier not to look each other in the eye. “I know we both aren’t happy with the way things are between us.”

“And I know we both haven’t done too much to fix that.”

It’s hard to hear, but she’s not wrong in the slightest.

“Can I just ask you something?” Harriet asks, breaking an itchy silence they fall into.

“Of course.”

“Did you ever really like me?”

_It’s the day after her_ _birthday_ _, he chastises himself. He can’t bloody well have sex with one of his best friends the night of her birthday and then leave the next day without acknowledging it._

_He could think of something nice for her._

_It could even be his belated birthday present to her._

“You asked me out, because it was the day after my birthday and you didn’t want to hurt me?” Harriet looks at him incredulously, their eyes finally connecting in the moonlight. 

Newt nods a little sheepishly. “I’m sorry.”

“I mean you realize, I’ve had sex with guys before who didn’t ask me out the next day and it’s not like I would just _die_ if we didn’t get married the day after, right?” Harriet actually laughs, in that playful girlish giggle of hers. 

“Oh come on. It was your _birthday_.” Newt hears himself chuckling. “And you’re one of my best friends. I couldn’t just do nothing.”

“You also could’ve just said, ‘ _yo Harriet last night was crazy and maybe we’ll do it again sometime, but hope you had a good birthday!’_ ”

“Yeah, in retrospect, _now_ that seems like a fine idea! At the time, I was panicking. It was the legit morning after and I was still reeling from the news - well, you know. The news about my father. And his one night stand. And I just didn’t want you to feel like that.”

“You could’ve told me. We could’ve talked about it.”

“Because we’re great at that.”

Harriet shrugs and leans back onto the bench. “Sure, as a couple, we’re not. We like talking about fruit instead of our own relationship. But as friends, we could.”

Newt’s silent for another few minutes before he asks, “Did you ever really like me?”

Then Harriet’s silent for another few minutes. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I did. We had really great sex.”

Newt bursts out laughing. “Can’t wait to tell our future respective grandkids that was the _one_ thing we really liked about each other.”

“First thing first, we gotta teach them about communication.”

“Nah, we’ll just let them figure that one out by themselves. If we start giving them all our secrets, they just might start to think they’re cooler than us and that can’t happen.”

Harriet laughs that airy, girlish giggle of hers before turning quiet for a moment. “And your humor. I really liked your humor.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. We’re still friends here, it’s not like I’ll never hear you tell another joke again.” Harriet shrugs and sits up again. “This is completely mutual. We both liked each other for a minute, and that minute’s over.”

“Who knew a minute could last six months?”

“We’re fucking legends for inventing a minute that lasted six months.”

Newt’s heart feels a little bit lighter now, but he still can’t help the sinking feeling in his soul from overwhelming. A giant dark blanket that wraps itself around him, whispering, _you made her sad. You made her unhappy. How could you do this? You absolute monster._

“But I really am sorry, Harriet. I should have told you the truth about how I felt sooner.”

Harriet gives him a little, sad smile. “Me too. It’s mutual now, at least. You’re not breaking up with me and I’m not breaking up with you. We both ended it.”

“Are you happy?” Newt asks as she’s standing up. It’s nearly two in the morning but he can’t help but ask her the same question that started this. “With this now. With us being friends?”

“The happiest.”

The giant dark blanket lightens a little bit. “Me too.”

 

V.

 

“She asked me if I was happy.”

“So what did you say?”

“That I was. But not in the romantic way. I wasn’t unhappy, but I wasn’t over the moon. And I told her I knew she felt the same way.”

“So then what did she say?”

He’s back with Thomas the very next day, fresh after the break-up, at their favorite diner across campus. He’s got half a mind to throw the rest of his crisps at the other boy to shut him up already.

“Are you bloody bonkers? This isn’t a gossip session between you and Sonya.”

“Oh God, I’ve been spending too much time with Teresa.” 

Newt had filled him in on the moonlit conversation with Harriet, that ended with both of them deciding to be friends, but recognizing it would be weird for a ‘minute.’ A minute that hopefully wouldn’t last another six months. 

But maybe another six days. 

“To answer your question, she asked me if I ever really liked her in the first place.”

“Did you?”

Newt’s _very_ close to throwing the rest of his crisps at Thomas. “We are not playing twenty questions again.”

“Okay, just last one, then. I promise this is the last question I will ever ask you.”

Newt’s known Thomas well enough to know that’s an absolute lie. “Sure it is. But I’ll humor you.”

“Why were you ever together?”

It’s the same reason he explained to Harriet last night on why he couldn’t just leave her the day after her birthday, naked and alone in her bed. It never occurred to him that a relationship did not have to come immediately after sex - since he unsurprisingly did not have a lot of sex or relationships in secondary school - that after sex, even with your best friend, could just be a casual relationship.

“I thought it was the right thing to do.”

“It just shows you care.” Thomas says quickly, surprising Newt. “You care about her.”

“I do.”

“You’re not an ‘arse’.” Thomas says, adapting once to Newt’s mother-tongue. The simple gesture alone makes that giant, dark blanket lighten from Newt’s shoulders a bit more. “You did what you thought was the right thing to do. You know, Newt, I think you’re pretty -“

“Tom?”

Both of their heads turn back to see Teresa by the counter, standing next to an African-American kid with curly black hair and a maroon vest. She waves in their direction and even though he’s sure she’s mainly waving to Thomas, he waves back at her to be friendly.

“Hey, T. I didn’t know you were coming.”

The statement sounds relaxed, although Thomas’s posture is anything but. His voice is a little more strained and tense than usual, and his brown eyes have a wild look in them.

“Wasn’t planning on it. But Frypan convinced me to take a break from the stupid Principles of Economics paper. Do you two know each other?”

She clearly means Thomas and Frypan but Newt shakes his head dumbly. Frypan gives him a quiet smile.

“Yeah.” Thomas nods.

It would be the perfect opportunity for Thomas to invite the two to sit down with them and chat, but Thomas is frozen like a deer caught in the headlights. The poor shank barely looked like he was even breathing.

“Uh, what are you two up to after this?” Newt asks.

“Have to study for the Intro to Macro test tomorrow.” Frypan explains. “Paige is trying to murder us.”

“Yeah.” Thomas says again.

Teresa frowns, looking at him like he’s grown an extra head. “What?”

Even Newt’s feeling thrown off by the brunet’s strange behavior.

“I’m sorry, I was distracted.” Thomas shakes the weird glaze out of his eyes. “I meant I’m sorry to hear. But, uh, same time, tonight?”

“Let’s grab dinner before.” Teresa suggests, still giving him that curious look.

“Perfect.”

She waves goodbye again before following Frypan out the door and Thomas visibly deflates.

“Are you okay?” Newt asks before realizing what a dumb question that was. “No, don’t answer that. You’re stressed.”

“I have two dates to Minho’s party.” Thomas blurts out. “One is my best friend who I can’t just dump because I may think I like the other girl who sort of asked me.”

“Brenda?” Newt guesses, her name leaving an uncanny feeling on his tongue.

“Brenda.” Thomas confirms.

An interesting thought crosses Newt’s mind. “There is a way, in fact, to avoid making them both upset.”

“How?” 

“Just don’t go.”

“But Minho -“

“Is not going to miss us. He’ll get over it.” Newt reassures him. _Minho would understand him not wanting to go to a dates-only party just a few days after he broke up with Harriet._ “Girls are an entirely different species altogether. Take it from me, I’ve lived with Sonya and her boy problems for the better part of eighteen years.”

Thomas looks hopeless for a minute, his brain over-working to try and justify the most logical outcome of this difficult situation until he frowns. “I thought you were planning on going.”

“You need an alibi. A reason for not coming. Tell them I’m too hung up on Harriet and if I go and see her, I’ll be gutted and inconsolable.”

Thomas still looks troubled. “I can’t just lie.”

“Well, it’s not necessarily a lie. If Harriet’s there with another guy, and I’m alone, I will be gutted and inconsolable.” Newt explains, suddenly feeling troubled himself since he never _considered_ either of them having to start seeing other people so quickly. “And you’re not lying. I’m the one who said it. So therefore, it’s true.”

“You shouldn’t not go just because I screwed up.” At least, Thomas has started to smile again.

“You know me and parties. We’re the best of friends. You’re really paining me by giving me a reason not to go.” Newt remarks drily.

“Thank you, Newt.”

“What are friends for?”

Thomas grins little. “Picking up the check?”

“You cheap bugger.”

 

VI.

 

“Hey, you.”

Newt looks up from his computer, where he had been looking online into a fascinating place called Crank Palace. “Hey, you.”

Minho had just walked into the room and dropped his backpack onto the floor. He leans back against his bed, crosses his arms, and stares at Newt.

“What?”

“So. You broke up with Harriet?”

Newt shakes his head and closes his computer. “No, it was mutual. We both ended it. You were sleeping when I came back in and this isn’t really something to say over text.”

“Duh. How you feeling?”

Newt shrugs. “It’s not like we really on the best of terms, anyways.”

“Still. It’s the longest relationship you’ve ever been in.”

“It’s the only relationship I’ve ever been in.”

Minho snorts. “I was trying to be generous.”

“We’ll still be friends. You know, after it becomes less awkward. It’s better this way, right?”

“Than having you two barely talking to each other or avoiding the hell out of each other? Fuck yeah.”

Newt doesn’t feel _sad_ , necessarily, but he definitely doesn’t feel relieved. He feels so neutral about the whole thing that he’s starting to feel guilty about it. 

“Good.”

Nothing about the situation is good, but he’s ready to talk about something else instead of listening to the demons dancing around in his head.

“By the way, your sister is a traitor and might be going to _Gally’s_ party instead of mine.” Minho sighs dramatically and flops back onto his bed. “I’m excusing you because you just got off of a break-up and there’s no way in hell _I_ can even find you a decent date in this much short notice.”

“How sweet of you.”

“I mean, Harriet can definitely find a date. I’m sure Frypan or Aris would be drooling over her. But we won’t subject you to that.”

“So who are you taking, Minho?” Newt rolls onto his side, burying himself further under the covers.

Minho laughs and shakes his head. “I did a dumb thing.”

“Oh? _Please_ tell me you didn’t ask Suzy.”

“I haven’t even thought about her in weeks until you brought that up, so no. And what the fuck, Newt? She doesn’t even go to school anywhere _near_ here, I’m not an idiot.” Minho sighs and flops backwards onto his bed. “I asked Teresa.”

Newt’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head. “What?! You mean the same girl who probably has her wedding with Tommy already planned out?”

Minho rolls his eyes. “Yes, thank you for reminding me. I figured it’d be a good way to make her feel more comfortable within the group.”

“Oh, really?”

“Really.”

“So what did she say?” Newt asks as sympathetically as he can, having already known the answer.

“Don’t be too shocked or anything. She actually just texted me an hour ago that since Thomas isn’t going anymore, she’d be happy to be my date. Would you happen to know anything about that?”

Newt is a little shocked to hear Teresa’s agreement to being his date, but he doesn’t let it show. “So you’re completely fine with being a second-choice date?”

Minho grins playfully at him. “At least I have a date.”

Newt throws his pillow across the room.

“Too soon? Besides, why isn’t Thomas coming anywhere? This is the first I’m hearing about this.”

“He’s hanging out with me so I won’t have to watch my hotter ex-girlfriend go to your dates-only party with an equally as hot guy.”

“Ah, buddy. When you finally turn 18 - you’ll be hot, too.”

Newt tries to chuck another pillow at Minho, but the other boy successfully dodges it and whips Newt’s pillow back at him. Soon, they’re having an all-out war and Newt’s actually getting out of bed to try to protect himself from Minho’s aggressive pillow-fighting attack. They’re laughing like they’re children - ironically, the very thing Minho was accusing him of looking like - and that giant, itchy dark blanket wasn’t feeling so present, or so heavy, anymore.

 

VII.

 

By the time Thomas has arrived back on campus for the night, the Valentines Day party is already in full swing and Newt was hiding in the bathroom. He had excused himself when the first guests started to arrive to make sure his hair was brushed somewhat properly and then ended up staying inside when almost five or six couples had shown up. So far, Harriet and her mysterious date had yet to make an appearance, including his sister and her boyfriend.

Teresa looked pretty in a flowing red dress that matched Minho’s red tie, and the rosy color forming on both of their cheeks. They stuck close together like an elegant couple, from what Newt could see, drinking red wine from wine glasses and and giggling to each other after socializing with another couple. 

If she wasn’t so enamored with her best friend, Newt thought she and Minho would’ve made a beautiful couple.

He slips out once more people have started to arrive and the music playlist from Gally’s floor downstairs can start to be heard. He waves a quick goodbye to Minho before heading out the door and walking straight into Harriet.

The first thing he notices, is how she looks absolutely beautiful in a black dress, large golden hoops hanging from her ears, and her hair out and wild in a curly Afro. The second thing, is that she doesn’t have a date. 

Newt’s almost too shocked to say hi - considering this is very situation he had been _hoping_ to avoid - but he hears some sort of pitch-squeaked, _“Oh hi,_ ” spoken into the air and comes to the unfortunate conclusion that it was him.

She raises her eyebrows in an amused fashion, a little smirk gracing her lips before she steps past him and into his dorm room. 

Newt can’t escape the catwalk fast enough.

 

VIII.

 

“I’m gonna kick your ass at Skee Ball.” Thomas grins wickedly as they exchange their cash for game tokens and take in the place. There was dim, fluorescent blue and pink lighting and a large flat-screen TV in one corner of the room, playing some American football game. There was a 21+ bar by that corner that served beer and wine, while all the arcade and video were on the other side of the joint.

“Don’t get too full of yourself here, I happen to bloody fantastic at Skee Ball.”

He, in fact, was not even close to fantastic at the game.

The Skee balls were so damn small that getting them into the circle hoops should’ve been an easy feat, but he was so focused on trying to beat Thomas that he kept flinging them everywhere _but_ the hoops.

Which ended up being a summary of most of the night - Thomas telling him he would kick his ass at some game, Newt pretending like he was actually good at the game, Thomas doubling over with uncontrollable laughter when Newt hit the air puck on the air hockey machine so far _away_ from Thomas’s goal, it flew to the other side of the room and nearly hit someone in the face.

“You are so bad at this,” Thomas is practically wheezing, wiping at his eyes from laughing so hard. Thomas’s tickets from winning the game a whopping ten points to Newt’s _zero_ shoot out of the machine.

“You’re just insanely aggressive.” Newt protests and elbows the other boy when Thomas waves them in his face. 

“I had to be or else I never would have survived childhood with Teresa - do you know she once pushed me off of those motorcycles when we would play the driving games just so I’d lose? I will always have a scar on my knee from that savage.”

Newt laughs with him as they move away from the air hockey machine, away from the other games they’ve already played. Thomas stops in front of the ticket counting machine and starts sliding his in.

“Here, I’ll get you something nice. Your grand choices are a rainbow slinky or a purple bandana.” Thomas frowns at the display counter. “What are we, 5?”

“Well if you put my tickets in with yours, we can just trade them for that chicken wing platter.” Newt points to the menu on the other side of the counter. “Did you bring your fake?”

“I think?” Thomas pulls out his wallet and checks. “Yeah, I did.”

“You look older than me - _shut up_ \- so you get the drinks and I’ll use the tickets to get the food.”

Thomas is still smirking when he walks away towards the bar and Newt just rolls his eyes. He doesn’t look _that_ young, in his own opinion thank you very much, his friends are just assholes.

He orders the chicken wing platter with their combined tickets and hands over the receipt to the cashier.

“Would you like our Valentines Day special?” She asks, barely looking him over. “We can throw in a box of chocolates for an extra $2.99.”

Newt blinks. “Oh I’m not uh, I’m not on a date.”

The girl looks up with renewed interest. “Wait, you’re not? So that cute guy with you - he’s single?”

“No.” Newt hears himself saying before he’s even registered that he’s talking.

The girl frowns. “Wait. So you’re both just friends? Hanging out together on _Valentines Day_? But he’s not single?”

Newt rolls his eyes for the millionth time that night and says a little hotly, “Look, I’m sure it’s not even a part of your job to know this, but I just got out of a long relationship and he’s being a good friend. Can we just get the chicken wings?”

The girl looks a little miffed at being spoken to sharply and finishes his transaction silently. After she hands him back the receipt, she gives him a tight smile before disappearing into the back.

And last year, during Year 12 when they were both saving up money for university, Sonya used to work in a fast food restaurant where she would tell Newt all about the horrible customers she had to deal with.

_“But I have a simple solution for whenever they get on my nerves,” She had grinned evilly one night when they were watching a movie. “I just go into the back and sneeze on their food.”_

_“You’re vile.”_

_“So are they! It’s not like they’ll ever know, but I know so it gives me some satisfaction in that sense.”_

“Hey, just remember he has to eat the food too!” Newt suddenly shouts after her.

“What’s wrong?”

Newt nearly jumps out of his skin but smiles at Thomas, holding two large cups of beer, as if the past three minutes hadn’t happened at all. “Nothing! Hey, by the way, I really wanted to thank you for everything.”

“Dude, it’s no problem at all. You saved _me_ from having to deal with two dates.”

“But you also helped me with Harriet. Even though you asked more questions than any Spanish Inquisition,” Thomas blushes slightly at this and it’s a pretty pink color under the fluorescent lights and Newt wants to make this image last a good, long time, “you were really, really helpful. So thank you.”

“What are friends for?” Thomas says innocently as the cashier comes back with the plate of chicken wings. She gives the tiniest glares at Newt, before shining a smile at Thomas, who’s oblivious to the whole ordeal.

Or so, he seems to be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to be honest, as i was writing the last part of this chapter, it hit me how much i kind of wish that instead of rewriting this story from newt’s perspective with the same content from the original story, that i had just focused on the sophomore/senior years of university that i didn’t cover in the first story. 
> 
> then i realized not much actually happens in sophomore year, haha. so i was thinking i’d finish freshmen year (spring break (!!) and newt’s birthday) into one mega chapter, and then focus a little on sophomore year? probably the latter half of the year 
> 
> (SPOILERS AHEAD IF U HAVEN’T READ YOU WERE MY BEST FOUR YEARS)
> 
> after thomas’s break-up with brenda, valentines day 2.0, spring 2.0, newt’s birthday 2.0, and then the confrontation with teresa :(
> 
> then we can jump into a condensed (or not condensed) version of junior year, with some small snippets of senior year. let me know if this is something you’re interested in, or care about!! your feedback is really important to me and i appreciate u guys for sticking around so long <3 
> 
> come talk to me on twitter (happydyian) or tumblr (ourlovelybones) <3 i'm always lonely so come be my friend fkdshkjd


	7. spring breakers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first Spring Break {march}
> 
> “You think the seven of us could actually get involved in something so dark as a murder whilst inebriated? Tommy, just last weekend you got so drunk you tried to beat up Gally.”
> 
> Thomas groans loudly as the memories pour over him and disappears under water.
> 
> Newt’s still laughing by the time the other boy resurfaces. “You tried to beat him up but you ended up falling all over yourself and nearly getting a concussion because you tripped over the bedpost!”
> 
> “Alright, alright I get your point!” Thomas concedes with a grin and runs his long fingers through his wet hair. “So we’re not cut out to be criminal masterminds. What’s the wildest thing you think could happen on this trip?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the long time, no see! this universe is one of my favorites to write in - but i always get the WORST writer's block with it. so with that being said...
> 
> i am finding it hard to be inspired to essentially rewrite 'you were my best four years.' i did it last year because i didn't realize how hard it was to rewrite something you already wrote and couldn't re-edit essentially and how draining it kind of becomes. someone commented this in the last chapter, and you're absolutely right - i'm trying not to write the same story over and so i'm losing the heart of it i think. now i don't want to give up on this story, but i think i'm going to change direction. 
> 
> this collection of chapters is going to be the end of this project - "Newt's" version of 'you were my best four years.' and i'm going to start a collection of one-shots that are "Newt's" perspective within the 'you were my best four years' universe, if that makes sense? if you're ever curious to what happens to newt and thomas post graduation, give me a prompt and i'll write it! curious about one of thomas's surprises for newt's birthday - or even vice versa? give me a prompt and i'll write it! think of it as me emulating lokidiabolus's style -- a post-story set of Prompts/One-Shots challenge. gosh i LOVE THEM AND THEIR WORK
> 
> which also brings me to another point. i came back ALSO because i noticed with rat trashner's recent announcement of a #NEWT-centered new tmr book, a LOT of people were conveniently forgetting the sexual harassment allegations against him all because of a ship. the amount of tweets that simply said "NEWTMAS" in the comments of his tweet is astounding to me. don't forget that newt is his own character with his own story/journey, he's not oNLY a ship! AND PLS DON'T FORGET JAMES DASHNER SEXUALLY HARASSED SOMEONE!? 
> 
> look we have fanfiction for a reason! there are PLENTY of #NEWT-centric stories! NO need to give J*mes the clout he's looking for to cover up for what he did. if you want a list of INCREDIBLE #NEWT-centric newtmas stories, please dm me on twitter (wckdisaks) or tumblr (ourlovelybones)!  
> and if you're going to disagree with me, all i ask is that you do it respectfully. if you're going to start a debate in the comments, please be mindful that sexual harassment is a very DIFFICULT topic to talk about. (i have a lot of anxiety/stress these days so i haven't even been able to respond to KIND comments - all to say, if you're going to be rude, you're just not getting a response from me regardless).
> 
> and with that - SO SORRY - looooooong chapter note, let's get on with the new chapter!

“Miami looks good on me, doesn’t it?”

Newt snorts, as he looks over his shoulder at his friend. Minho’s sprawled out over his bright red beach towel, his hands behind his head and his shades covering his eyes. “You’re bloody ridiculous.”

“Man, I’m serious! I haven’t been this relaxed - or this _tan_ \- since St. Lucia.”

Minho’s family liked to go on “family vacations” at the end of every ‘fiscal’ American year - the end of June, as the rest of the world knew it. They would pack their luggage and board their flights to stay at their hotel and essentially ignore each other for two weeks. Minho said it was some of the best family bonding times they've had.

Newt hasn’t felt this relaxed since the night before he found out his parents had essentially lied to him his entire life. 

“Where’s everyone else?”

“Sonya’s sucking face with her boyfriend, but I’m sure you knew that already.”

“Thanks for the visual.” Newt frowns, holding his book up closer to his face to hide himself from the searing sun. 

“Harriet and Teresa went to get ingredients for mimosas because we’re going out later. You know we’re going out later, right?”

“No.”

“We’re going out later.”

“Glad we cleared that up.”

“I’m not sure where Thomas is, actually. I thought he was supposed to meet us here an hour ago.”

It’s their second day in Miami and the first day that Newt and Minho have managed to make it to the beach, since everyone was too tired to do much but eat until their stomachs protested in pain and drink until their brains protested in vain the day before. The plan was to reconvene at the beach once everyone had finished their individual plans and figure out what to do later, but so far Newt and Minho were the onlyones who decided to show up.

“He was still sleeping when we left this morning.” Newt muses. He marks his place in his book, before setting it down and crossing his arms over his pale chest. “Should we ring him?”

“Thomas is a big boy. I’m sure he’s -“

“Hey guys, sorry I’m late!” 

“There he is.” Minho smirks - as much as he can with his shades on. “Where were you?”

Thomas plops himself down next to Newt’s towel, still in his jeans and polo shirt. “Brenda called me after I woke up. Didn’t realize it would take so long.”

Newt’s eyes flicker to Minho’s, but he can’t tell if his friend is looking at him or not from behind the sunglasses. It kind of occurs to Newt that they never really ask Thomas about Brenda, and in return, Thomas never really talks to them about her. No one is quite clear on Thomas’s relationship with Brenda - and no one is quite clear on how to approach that conversation with Teresa around, who’s usually never around _anyways_ but ended up coming to Miami with the rest of the gang.

“We’re going out later.” Newt blurts out. 

“Yeah? I think Teresa mentioned that to me. She and Harriet are getting stuff for mimosas, right?” Thomas says as he finally takes off his polo shirt. He’s already a fairly tanned boy, but his skin looks almost golden under the bright sunlight. His back muscles flex as he stretches and begins to remove his jeans.

Newt looks away quickly before he can start drooling.

“Right. I’m thinking we should go to this club downtown next to the place we had dinner at last night. You in?” Minho’s eyes are still obscured behind his dark sunglasses, but he’s facing Thomas and Newt’s general direction. Whether or not he’s noticed Newt’s obnoxious ogling, he doesn’t make any sign of it.

“Eh, I don’t know, man. That place looked a lil pricey.”

“Everything about Miami is going to be pricey.”

“Yeah, I _know_. The flights here and back nearly wiped me out. Let’s see what the girls think and we can decide after.”

“Don’t forget about Ben.” Newt says, once he feels he’s calmed down enough to look at Thomas and speak normal English again. 

Thomas groans as his eyes roll to the top of his head. “I really did forget about him for a hot minute. You think we can just pretend he doesn’t exist for the rest of the trip?” 

Newt chuckles at this, but then a weird squeaky noise comes out from his mouth. Something that sounds like a _teehee,_ the kind of laugh his sister used to laugh when she was trying desperately hard to impress an older boy at the mall. 

Minho’s eyebrow raises from behind his sunglasses. Newt immediately wants to die.

“I’m going into the water.” He jumps up quickly before his entire body can become enflamed with red shame. 

“Hey, I’ll come with you!” Thomas says, standing up to follow him. “It’s actually hot out here. You coming, Minho?”

Minho’s relaxed back into his tanning position, but his veiled eyes seem to be directly pointed at Newt. “No, I think I’ll stay here for now. I’m working on my tan. You two have fun.”

Newt bolts away when he feels his heart nearly jump out of his chest.

He falls back into the water, letting the strong waves roll over him. It feels like childhood and those summers they’d take family holidays out to resorts for Sonya and Newt to go swimming at. He wants to just lie there and bask in the waves, the sun, and the endless roar of the American spring breakers around him.

But Thomas has other plans. “Hey. Do you think we might get so blacked out at some point during this trip that we end up in the middle of a murder or something?”

“What the fuck, Tommy?”

Thomas laughs as he wades around. “I’m not entirely kidding. I mean, it’s Miami. Anything could happen.”

“You think the seven of us could actually get involved in something so dark as a murder whilst inebriated? Tommy, just last weekend _you_ got so drunk you tried to beat up Gally.”

Thomas groans loudly as the memories pour over him and disappears under water.

Newt’s still laughing by the time the other boy resurfaces. “You tried to beat him up but you ended up falling all over yourself and nearly getting a concussion because you tripped over the bedpost!”

“Alright, alright I get your point!” Thomas concedes with a grin and runs his long fingers through his wet hair. “So we’re not cut out to be criminal masterminds. What’s the wildest thing you think could happen on this trip?”

A couple of ideas run through Newt’s mind. _One so wild he barely thinks to entertain the idea._

“Harriet and Teresa hook up?”

 

I.

 

It’s early on in the trip when Minho introduces the idea of the _nude beach_.

“Absolutely fucking not.” Harriet says firmly as they all gather for breakfast on the third morning at a diner near the hotel.

“I have to agree with Harriet.” Teresa adds. Newt holds back a chuckle, even as he locks eyes with Thomas. 

“Oh come on, it could be so much fun!” Minho exclaims, with his mouth full of scrambled eggs. “A bunch of college kids from our hotel are going.”

“Just because a bunch of university kids are going doesn’t mean we have to go.” Sonya rolls her eyes. “If they all jumped off a bridge, would you jump off a bridge too?”

“Yes.” Minho tells her seriously. “If it meant we didn’t have to hang out with your boyfriend.”

The rest of the gang snicker as Sonya dramatically rolls her eyes and pretends to stab Minho with a fork. “Shut up, arsehole. He could come back from the toilets any minute.”

“Is there a reason he’s even here?” Minho continues as if she hasn’t said anything. 

“Because I wanted him here!”

“You out of six other people. I feel like that’s unfair.” Newt inputs drily.

“Shut it.”

“No.”

“Stop being such a bloody child -“

“Let’s get back to the topic at hand.” Harriet sighs, ever the mediator. “We’re not going to a nude beach. Right guys?”

“Right.” Sonya and Teresa nod their heads.

Sonya even looks at Newt expectantly. “Right?”

Newt’s quiet for a moment, pushing around his toast on his plate with his fork. _Americans should really consider putting beans on toast._

“Oh my God, are you bloody serious right now?!” Sonya exclaims. “ _You_ want to go to this nude beach? What's wrong with you?”

“Well,” Newt’s voice slightly trails off. “It _is_ Spring Break. Aren’t you supposed to do crazy stuff on Spring Break?”

“Like being naked around a bunch of other people we don’t even know!?” Harriet looks at him in horror as Minho fist-pumps him. “Are we the only sane ones here? We’re absolutely _not_ doing that.”

Teresa looks to Thomas. “You don’t want to go, right?”

Thomas looks a bit sheepish. “I mean, it does sound _kind of_ cool.”

“That’s my boy!” Minho claps him on the back. “You girls gotta loosen up. We’ll all be drunk as fuck and everyone else will be naked.”

“That doesn’t make it any _better_.” Sonya rolls her eyes. "What the fuck is the point of a  _nude beach_?"

“It sounds like the funnest thing we’ll do all trip and I vote we do it.”

“The _funnest_ thing? Are you a child? I vote we don’t do it and we go to a bar down the street instead. Or! Better yet - a _regular_ beach.” Harriet insists vehemently.

“We can go to regular beaches all the time.” Newt points out. “How often can we say we went to a nude beach?”

“We don’t need to say that we’ve ever been to a nude beach!” Sonya argues, doing that thing where her voice raises as she gets more passionate as she speaks.

Her cretin of a boyfriend chooses _that_ particular moment to show up back at the table. “What’s going on about a nude beach?”

“These three want to go to a nude beach.” Sonya catches him up to speed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Tell them it’s bloody ridiculous.”

Ben exchanges a look with Minho, then Thomas, then Newt. Newt fights to hide a smile, the _only_ time he’s ever fought such an urge in the other boy’s presence.

“Well, here’s the thing -“

“Oh my God, not you too?!” Sonya groans. “You’re all knackered.”

“You don’t _have_ to come, you know.” Newt tells her. “You’d be a bore anyways.”

“Shut it already.”

“No.”

“Newt, I swear I’ll -“

“While you four go to your dumb nude beach,” Harriet intervenes, before Sonya and Newt can start World War III, “the three of us girls will do something normal. Like souvenir shopping or day drinking at a regular beach.”

.

But in the end, the seven of them drink so many mimosas during breakfast that they _all_ end up at the nude beach.

Harriet’s the one who even calls the Uber XL, giving the driver the directions that Minho procured from someone at their hotel. She’s already removed her sundress by the time they pull up towards the secluded beach.

Sonya and Ben are the first to break away and Newt avoids looking in their direction as they enter the beach, holding hands and laughing together. Despite their temporary bro-connection, Newt still can’t figure out what his sister even sees in him. And he sure as hell doesn’t need to see either of them naked.

“I’m surprised you haven’t already stripped.” Harriet tells Minho while they walk closer to the fences barring off the sandy area.

“Is that a challenge, Emmanuel?”

“Last one to the water - fully nude - has to get a tattoo of the other’s face on their biceps.”

“Oh you’re fucking on!” Minho all but hollers, ripping off his muscle tee as he races Harriet to the water.

“This _could_ actually be fun.” Teresa says, in the middle of tipsy hiccups. She’s still got her sundress wrapped tightly around her body as they normally approach the fence. “Could it actually be fun, Tom, you think?”

“Yeah I think it could actually be fun.”

“Well good, because it could actually be fun.” 

Newt’s a bit shy about undressing in front of either of them so he excuses himself and walks past the fence, hoping to find a private area. Instead he finds himself in the middle of a wide open beach, surrounded by an army of naked teenagers and young adults.

So he slowly removes his cargo shorts, then his swim trunks, then his tank top. He tries not to cover himself up with his skinny, lanky arms and to be proud of his body as Minho so often tells him he should be. 

But it’s hard, being surrounded by muscular, tan athletes and being the odd one out. He feels like he’s so pale that he stands out like a sore thumb. 

He bolts to the water where Minho and Harriet are currently splashing - and attempting to drown - each other. He hopes to get lost under the glittering waves from the bright sunlight and away from everyone else’s view.

“Dude, I can’t believe we actually came!” 

Newt whirls around at the sound of Thomas’s voice, who has inexplicably appeared in the water along with Teresa, Sonya, and Ben. A small part of Newt finds himself disappointed that he hadn’t noticed the other boy running over. 

He tries to convince himself that it means nothing. He’s just tipsy from mimosas.

"Thooooommmmas!" Sonya exclaims, drawing out his name like a song. She throws her exposed arms around his shoulders. “You’re so pretty, you know. All the girls say so. Even T-“

“Sonya!” Ben and _Teresa_ shout at once.

Sonya blinks innocently. She can barely keep herself upright, even in the water, after all of the mimosas. “What?”

Newt wades over to Thomas, trying to remove him from Ben’s current, rather murderous line of sight. “I bet you I can hold my breath under water longer than you.”

Thomas raises his eyebrow with a grin. “Oh really? And what happens when I win?”

“ _When_?”

“Newt, you bet me last night at the pool in the hotel that you could hold your breath longer than me under water and you barely stayed there fore more than five seconds!”

“I was _drunk_ then.” Newt says stubbornly, crossing his arms. It’s a weird sensation being completely naked in a beach. It’s like taking a giant bath with five of your greatest friends and your sister’s annoying boyfriend. 

“And you’re not now?”

“Are you? That’s why you’re afraid I’m going to beat you.”

“You couldn’t beat me even if you tried! Alright, you ready? In one, t-“

“Tom!” Teresa suddenly pops up next to the two of them. “Look, they’re playing volleyball over there.”

She points to a group of uni students from their hotel that have banded together and are ferociously whacking a ball over a net. For some reason, she seems excited about this.

“You wanna go play?”

“Duh.” Teresa nudges him. “Let’s go.”

Thomas looks to Newt. “You wanna come?”

Newt looks at him incredulously. “Go over there and play ball with them? No thanks. I’ll stay here.”

“Have you played volleyball before? It’s fun, I promise!”

Nothing about whacking a ball over a net seems even remotely fun to Newt, even though he humors the idea for Thomas. He likes spending time with the other boy and hearing him talk about sports, even if the mere topic makes Newt’s eyes glaze over.

But, he decides he’s not drunk enough this time around to humiliate himself by doing sports (especially not  _naked_ ) and politely declines. 

Thomas looks apologetic as he waves and runs out of the water, following Teresa towards the other kids. Newt looks away before he can start drooling at the back of Thomas’s naked form.

He feels eyes on his back and he already has a feeling he knows _who_ ’s watching him, so he continues wading around in the water, pretending he hasn’t noticed. 

 

II.

 

One night all the boys on their hotel floor decide to buy airsoft guns and fill them with pounds and pounds of water.

They split themselves into teams (Northern universities vs. Southern universities) and make a deal that the losing team would be responsible for buying a round of drinks at the bar across the street. Minho’s grand plan was to hide until the very last possible minute and then attack all the remaining members of the other team.

But Thomas, ever the ridiculous one, decided to buy the largest possible gun in the store and not tell anyone until the last possible minute.

He does show his new toy to Newt, Minho, and Ben right before they’re about to play, causing Minho to change his grand plan to simply to  _Thomas’s giant-ass gun._

Thomas whips it out during the game, effectively sloshing the other team, and winning the boys a free round of drinks that night.

The next night, Harriet convinces a bartender from their girls night out to give them free tickets to a carnival happening on the other side of town. They dress nicely, only to get to the carnival and realize it’s a foam party. 

“My dress is going to be ruined!” Sonya says sadly. “I just bought it yesterday at the mall.”

Newt gets a rather crazy idea. He scoops up a handful of foam and throws it towards his sister, making sure to soak her nicely curled hair.

Sonya shrieks and immediately pushes him into the crowd, causing him to disappear in a sea of foam. Newt nearly loses his friends, save for the bright flashing neon lights and Thomas reaching into the sea of foam to find his hand.

Thomas pulls him up with his soft, strong hand and a soft, tipsy smile. “Hey, don’t get lost now! We’d never find you again.”

“Thanks, Tommy.”

The music blares through their hearts and their souls as they jump and dance around the foam pit, throwing some of it at each other despite their nice clothing. Sonya even lightens up a little when Ben kisses her in the middle of the foam pit, smiling down on her like she’s the only girl in the world.

Sometimes during the days, they split into small groups so that everyone can take turns going to museums or malls for souvenir shopping or to the grocery store. One day, Newt and Thomas elect to stay at the hotel because they were too lazy to take showers and pick up more beer for the pregame with the uni students across the hall.

They mindlessly watch TV because there wasn’t anything else to do. The morning and early afternoon blurs into a montage of reality shows that Newt could give less of a fuck about, but it’s fine because he’s with Thomas and Thomas can make anything tolerable. He makes margaritas and passes a sheet of paper to Newt when Kim starts complaining about losing her diamonds in the ocean.

“What is this?” Newt asks.

“Hangman. You ever played?”

“Of course I have. You’ve come up with a phase of three - no four - words with … hm, about twenty letters? - and I have to guess the letters until I can guess the phrase. Why are we playing hangman?”

Thomas shrugs his shoulders and grins. “Why shouldn’t we play hangman? You’d rather watch Kim complain about being rich again?”

Another night they implement Tequila Tuesdays - which is exactly as it sounds. Teresa and Thomas make a batch of beef tacos while Minho melts some cheese over nachos. It’s one of the only nights they don’t go out and rack up massive credit card debt, but crowd around Thomas, Newt, and Minho’s hotel room to watch bad sitcoms on Netflix and drink nothing but tequila. 

The first Tequila Tuesday, Thomas gets so drunk he passes out before they can start eating the tacos. Teresa dotingly rubs shaving cream all over his face, and Minho snaps a picture. 

They even sneak into a music festival and Newt’s drunken self attempts crowd-surfing when the band starts playing one of his favorite songs. He’s skinny enough for the crowd to lift him up and pass him around like a beach ball, but he’s also pale enough for security to notice him in the dark of night and demand to see their passes.

It’s not the only time they nearly get arrested on their trip.

 

III.

 

On the last night of Spring Break, the night before they go back to their miserable, dreary lives back at the Glade and need to become more ‘serious,’ Sonya, Harriet, Ben, Minho, and Newt join forces with the other university students in their hotel to throw a massive party down by the pool. 

There’s so much alcohol, the entire continent of Australia could become wasted within the hour. There’s so much music playing - from Ben’s speakers, from a different kid’s radio set, from a different kid’s speakers. There’s so much alcohol and party streamers and alcohol and girls and boys and alcohol - 

There’s just no _Thomas_.

All he knows is that Thomas should be here and Thomas is very much not here.

“Where is he?” Newt asks a pretty girl with long, wavy blonde hair. She looks like a mermaid, Newt thinks, in his hazy state of mind. She’s wearing a very form-fitting bikini top and a long skirt. 

“Where is who?”

“My friend. My Thomas.”

Newt’s slurring over his words. For a second, he thinks that the girl must have a twin or something because he’s seeing double. But then he realizes it’s his own sister behind her and her long, wavy blonde hair.

“Newt! We’re doing vodka shots by the speakers! Come over!”

If Newt did another vodka shot, he would probably pass out and die from being overly intoxicated.

So he naturally takes another shot.

“Where is he?” He asks again. Except, he’s not really sure who he’s asking this time. He was talking to Ben about nachos at one point - or maybe it was Minho? He definitely told Harriet that he couldn’t stand talking to Ben - but now he’s not sure if it was _Ben_ he told that to?

“Where is who?”

He’s being asked to take another shot again but someone grabs the tiny cup before he can take it. He feels angered by this, but because he’s not sure who to feel anger towards, he decides to stop being angry. He’s not even sure who asked him to take the shot.

“Where is she?”

Newt frowns. For the first time in thirty minutes, he tries to collect himself and his bearings. Right now, in this precise moment of time, he is standing next to Minho and some flamingo floating pool toy. The moon is almost high in the sky, taunting them and their future hangovers. It is the last night of Spring Break and he is wearing swim trunks and Minho's brand new Italian blazer, for unremembered reasons. 

“Where is who?” Newt asks somewhat coherently. _My friend. My Thomas._

“Teresa.” Minho’s running his hands through his hair, his eyes wildly searching the poolside for a girl with pretty brown eyes and electrifying blue eyes. “Have you seen her?”

Something feels off about his statement. _Teresa._

_Where is who?_

_My friend. My Thomas._

Newt, in his drunken state, understands something but he doesn’t understand what it is exactly. So he excuses himself and pushes through the drunken crowd. He sees his sister in the crowd, exchanging spit with her air-headed boyfriend. He sees Harriet smiling. He sees a blonde girl who looks a bit like a mermaid waving at him.

_My friend._

He pushes past the beer cans littered all over the poolside and steps over the threshold and back into the hotel. The elevator is maybe five or twenty or seventy-one steps away from the pool deck. Newt thinks he was counting. 

He pushes the button to go to the sixteenth floor, where he and Thomas and Minho share a one-bedroom hotel suite with a tiny couch. It takes eons and eons to get up there. If Newt’s life could be composed in a soundtrack, it would have played over fifty million times by the time he finally reached the sixteenth floor.

And once he steps out from the elevator doors, it finally hits him how much he needs to _pee._

Once he’s finished his business in the restroom, he makes sure to pay attention to the carpet, putting one foot in front of the other. It’s important he does this, but he does not know why yet.

The room they share is Room 1612. Newt makes his way to Room 1612, one foot in front of the other like a mantra, and then bursts into the room like a madman.

“Thomas, are you in here? Oh, there you are, Teresa. We’ve been looking for you two.”

The two of them jump away from each other on the tiny couch, Thomas raking in Newt’s body with his curious eyes before he starts cracking up. “What are you wearing?”

Newt looks down at his outfit, a pair of swim trunks and Minho’s brand new Italian blazer. He supposes it’s not the most fashionable outfit. “We’re all out by the pool, waiting for you two. Are you already drunk?”

“No,” Thomas says at the same time Teresa responds, “Yes.”

Newt’s not a picture of sobriety himself but he steps further into the room without stumbling. He’s a man on a mission to get his two friends outside to the pool to spend the last night of Spring Break with the rest of their friends. “You should come out. It’ll be fun.”

Teresa asks Thomas a question in a low voice, to which he responds, “Yeah, in a little. I’ll meet you down there.”

She nods her head at him before standing up and slipping past Newt out the door. She looks a little more flushed than usual, her cheeks bright pink and her eyes wide. If he didn’t know any better, Newt would’ve thought that he might have interrupted something between the two.

“Aren’t you going to get up?” Newt asks when it’s very clear that Thomas is in no position to get up from the couch.

The brunet starts chuckling. “I can’t.”

Newt steps closer. “Why not?”

“I feel like I’m not here.” Thomas tries to explain, but his eyes are completely wild. Newt bites the bullet and sits down next to the other boy. “Like not, mentally here.”

Newt nods sympathetically, like he understands. “Are you saying you’re bonkers?”

Thomas starts laughing, which causes Newt to start laughing, because Thomas is so _pretty_ when he laughs. Pretty enough that Newt picks up the bottle of vodka by his feet and tries to take a chug of it, before nearly choking. “God, I hate the taste of it. It burns your throat.”

“Hm.” Thomas takes it from him and chugs a little bit himself. “It’s awful.”

Newt takes it back and takes another chug. “So bloody awful.”

Thomas takes it back from him and takes another chug. “So fucking awful I think I’m going to throw up.”

Newt’s eyes widens. “Are you bloody serious?”

Thomas looks at him seriously for a total of five seconds. Then he cracks himself up and takes another chug. “No.”

Newt rolls his eyes and takes the bottle back, forcing himself to take _two_ shots. “This is absolutely vile. Who drinks this shit for fun?”

“Remember when Minho drank half a bottle of Tequila last Tuesday?” Thomas takes the bottle back from Newt and chugs a little bit. “I’m going to miss Tequila Tuesdays.”

Newt takes the bottle back. There’s less than half of the bottle left now; when Newt had arrived, it was almost full. “That concert we went to last night? I must say it was pretty funny trying to crowd surf.”

Thomas snorts and takes the bottle back. “The carnival was pretty cool, too. I liked all the foam. Or the nude beach. That was cooler than I thought it'd be.”

Newt smirks as he takes the bottle back. “Yeah, when my sister tried to hit on you?”

“God, don’t remind me! I’ve never seen Ben so … _anything._ He probably would’ve murdered me! Of course he chooses _then_ to finally adopt a personality.” Thomas groans and throws his head back on the couch, leaving his neck perfectly exposed, those moles littered on his pale skin like constellations. 

Newt swallows, taking another swift chug.

“Hey!” Thomas chuckles, taking the bottle from Newt. “I think it’s my turn actually.”

“Did you have fun at the nude beach?” Newt hears a voice asking. His brain is so far removed from his body - from fucking _Earth_ right now - that it takes him a while to register that he’s the one speaking.

“I had fun at the nude beach.” Thomas muses. If Newt wasn’t so fucking plastered, he might think that Thomas was actually _blushing_.

“Tommy?”

“I can’t really focus.” Thomas says. His words are slurred, but his voice sounds different. It takes Newt a moment to realize he’s trying out a British accent.

“Your accent sucks.”

“Your American accent isn’t perfect either!”

“Sure it is. I’m perfect.” Newt says in the most perfect American accent ever. For some reason, it causes the both of them to laugh. Thomas starts laughing, which causes Newt to start laughing, because Thomas is so _pretty_ when he laughs.

Newt’s head falls back on the couch, close to Thomas, his heart fluttering as he clutches his stomach. Maybe that’s what causes him to do what he does next.

“Can you focus now?”

“Eh. Not enough to get up.”

Newt’s aware that their friends are downstairs by the poolside waiting for them. Which is exactly why he slowly slips his fingers through Thomas’s.  _My friend. My Thomas._

“How about now?”

Thomas rapidly blinks a couple of times. His hand is warm as his fingers curl around Newt’s and his voice quiet as he murmurs, “Yeah.”

Newt turns his body to face Thomas now, their eyes locking together. Everything is spinning, spinning, spinning around Newt - the world is flipping upside down and back around - but he can see Thomas clear as the sunny day they first arrived in Miami. His beautiful brown hair, his soft brown eyes, his fair tanned skin. Everything about Thomas is so familiar - like the back of his hand or his favorite song by the Beatles. Everything except his right hand that is now clasped with Newt’s.

“How about … now?”

He’s almost already forgotten why they’re doing this. His head is so dizzy and his heart is pounding so hard, threatening to jump out of his chest. But Thomas’s hand is so _soft_. He starts rubbing circles on the other boy’s finger with his thumb.

“Yeah.”

If Newt were a little more sober, he would have heard Thomas’s voice almost get stuck in his throat. If Newt were a little more sober, he’d hold himself back and bring his friend down to the poolside where the rest of their friends were waiting for them.

But he’s not sober. He’s perfectly present, right there in the moment with this pretty boy. “How about now?”

And he doesn’t wait for a response, his heart jumps out of his chest and into Thomas. He leans forward and kisses him silly, their lips dancing against each other. His hands work their way through Thomas’s hair, who pulls him into his lap and runs his hands up and down his back. He kisses Thomas, barely pulling apart for air, as if the very moment they break apart, the real world will force them to come back. 

They kiss for ages, for decades, for centuries, for millennia, for eternity. Thomas tastes like vodka and strawberry daiquiris, with a hint of mint. Thomas feels warm and inviting. Like fireworks on that silly American holiday, the one on fourth July. 

When they break apart for the tiniest of moments, they almost forget to breathe. Newt’s lost in the darkness of Thomas’s eyes, his pupils incredibly dilated. His hair is so ruffled and all over the place, Newt nearly laughs. 

But there’s no time to laugh as Thomas pulls him back in for a searing kiss and starts to stand up. It’s messy and it’s awkward and they fumble all over each other, trying to stand up while remaining attached at their lips. They’ve finally found their rhythm, moving their bodies against each other just in the _right_ place with the right amount of friction. Newt thinks he might actually be seeing stars.

Newt starts to run his hands over Thomas’s shoulders, picking at the annoying piece of fabric covering his godly skin. Thomas finally gets the hint and breaks away from Newt for only a moment to remove his shirt, his muscles flexing in the moonlight.

Thomas pulls the Italian blazer off of Newt as they fall backwards onto the bed, Newt straddling his body over the brunet’s hips. He moves himself down, his tongue leaving a trail down Thomas’s stomach as he gets closer and closer. His eyes flicker slowly to the other boy, for the confirmation.

Thomas groans softly in response.

The brunet’s swim trunks come off quick and Newt works his magic. He’s completely pissed drunk but he’s nearly sober. He’s not messy, but passionate. This is different from all the other times he’s been drunk before, but he can’t exactly pinpoint why. 

Thomas tastes like a dream come true.

His head is swirling and spinning when Thomas runs his bloody hand up and down him, inside of his bloody swim trunks, laughing into Newt’s mouth as he kisses him madly again. The world is spinning, spinning, spinning, but Newt’s never felt more present.

“How about now?”

Newt’s voice sounds raspy, quiet, and out of place. The only words that have been uttered in the past ten minutes.

A laugh runs through Thomas’s eyes before reaching to the corners of his lips, turning into a wicked gleam as he finally pulls Newt’s swim trunks off. “ _Yeah.”_

 

IV.

 

The morning after is pure hell.

Newt wakes up with a dry mouth, a pounding headache, and an overwhelming urge to throw up everything he’s ever eaten in his life. He’s ready to race out of his bed to the bathroom on the other side of the room when he realizes he’s _stark naked_.

Under the covers, stark naked - in bed with _Thomas Greene._

Newt scrambles to find any of his clothes, slipping into pajamas pants and one of Minho’s old track tee-shirts, before running to the toilet. He tastes nothing but pure vodka coming up from his throat and emptying into the bowl.

“You feel like pure shit too?”

Newt makes a noise resembling a _squeal_ at the sound of Minho’s voice from the door to the bathroom. He wipes his face hurriedly and flushes the toilet. “When did you get back?”

“A few minutes ago.”

Newt frowns as he rinses out his mouth and washes his face. “A few minutes ago? You didn’t sleep here last night?”

A panic runs through Newt’s bones after he asks this, realizing he _needs_ Minho _not_ to have slept in _here_ last night. 

“I slept over in Teresa’s room. You ready to hear something?”

After the memories from last night slowly begin flooding through his eyes - the gentle touches but strong fingers, the hot trail of kisses down his spine - Newt’s not sure anything _can_ surprise him. If he's being honest, he's feeling a bit weak in the knees thinking about last night. Which makes what they did even worse.

“Harriet slept in another hotel room last night.” Minho says carefully, watching Newt’s reaction. God bless his soul, Newt thinks, to be so concerned about his friend while being so horribly hungover. “I don’t even know if it was another guy, or maybe some girl she’d met that she’d thought was cool, but I figured you should hear about it from me than someone else. Who even knows if she slept with him? She might not have.”

Harriet sleeping with someone else is truly the _last_ thing Newt is currently worried about. Sure, he hopes his friend is safe, but shouldn’t he have learned his bloody lesson by now about having drunken sex with his best friends?

Especially drunken sex with one of his best friends who has a _complicated_ situation with someone else.

“I did something bad.”

.

Thomas doesn’t wake up for another two hours, surprisingly not running to the bathroom as soon as he comes back into consciousness.

He rubs at his eyes for a few minutes, before surveying his surroundings. “Fucking hell.”

“Good morning.” Newt says. He hopes the nervousness isn’t leaking through his voice.

“Are you sure?” Thomas groans, rolling over on his side and putting a pillow over his head. “I feel like I’ve been run over and left as roadkill.”

“Do you need any water?” Newt asks.

“Yes, please.”

Newt passes him a water bottle on the nightstand and watches as Thomas tilts his head back to quench his thirst, exposing the hickeys Newt had left all over his neck.  
Newt feels his cheeks become inflamed and stammers, “Do you, uh - well um. I, um …”

Thomas raises his eyebrow. “What?”

“Do you, uh, do you remember last night?”

Thomas freezes, his eyes trailing down his body under the covers. “Oh God.”

“So, you do remember?”

They’re both having trouble looking at each other now. Newt finds fiddling with his fingers to be a very important task. It was nice, _it_   _was so nice,_ he remembers that. In the moment, the kissing that made his heart almost explode and the touching that brought him to the stars was  _so, so nice._

But it's the morning after and Thomas has a thing with someone else. Newt is dumb, dumb, dumb.

“Look Newt, I -“

“It doesn’t mean anything’s changed between us.” Newt says quickly. He thinks if he can speak before Thomas can explain that it was all a mistake, that his _thing_ with Brenda was still blossoming and he didn’t want to ruin it, it’ll make it easier. The whole pretending it never actually happened. “You’re still one of my best mates at the end of the day.”

Thomas is quiet for a moment. “What are you saying?”

“You have a thing with Brenda - and to what extent, none of us actually know because we never actually ask you and you know, it’s about time that we do.” Newt folds his hands over his lap and turns his body to face Thomas. Everything about this is reminiscent of last night, right before he slipped his fingers through the other boy’s and looked directly into his eyes. The same eyes he watched as he moved up and down, up and down on him -

_This is_ _not_ _the time to be thinking about_ _that_ _. Now is the time to be a good friend and ask him about Brenda._

Thomas looks at the rest of his body concealed beneath the covers. 

“You probably want to put on clothes!” Newt exclaims, just as quickly turning around so that his back is facing him. “Sorry about that, mate. Anyways, um, Minho came over earlier.”

Thomas is quiet as he gets out from under the covers and shuffles around, putting on pants and a shirt.

“He’s looking for Harriet, I think. I might go down and help him.” Newt stands up, with his back still turned to Thomas. 

_._

_“What did you do?” Minho asks with genuine concern._

_Newt’s throat closes. His friend is too thoughtful in moments like these, where they’re both hungover as fuck and ready to vomit the rest of their insides. Newt doesn’t want to burden him. He made up his bed, now it was time for him to sleep in it._

_“I think I might’ve given Thomas alcohol poisoning.”_

_“What? How much did you all drink last night?”_

_Newt looks over Minho’s shoulder at Thomas’s possibly comatose figure. “Maybe half a bottle of vodka? Actually, I think we finished it.”_

_“Jesus Christ.”_

_“You think he’ll wake up anytime soon?”_

_“You should wait for him here if he does.”_

_Newt's almost scared to wait alone with his thoughts. “Where are you going?”_

_“I’m going to go find Harriet. Come join me when you’re sure he’s alive and able to take care of himself."_

_._

“Is that it, then?”

“Is what it?” Newt asks. He knows exactly what it is.

Thomas is quiet again. “Everything stays the same after this?”

Newt finally forces himself to turn around. Thomas isn’t even watching him - he’s staring out the window, looking down by the poolside. 

“It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

Thomas turns around, looking Newt directly in the eyes. “Let me know then.”

“What?”

“When you find her.”

 

V.

 

“I’m really going to miss Miami.” Sonya says dramatically as they all sit around the gate terminal, waiting for their flight. Despite it being past 9pm, most of them are still wearing sunglasses to deal with the _massive_ hangover.

“Can we bring Tequila Tuesdays back to the Glade?” Harriet asks, fanning herself with a magazine. “God knows I’ll need them after getting back into Advanced Calculus. Why did we even fucking take that classes?”

“I’ll miss all the beautiful girls.” Minho muses. Somehow he's the most composed of them all, despite being the one who was nearly arrested twice and kicked out of multiple bars for being overly intoxicated. “Beautiful girls and beautiful mimosas. This really was the trip of a lifetime.”

A weird silence falls over the group, which doesn’t normally happen. Normally Newt or Thomas pick up the end of the conversation and it leads to a bickering match between Newt and Sonya, that Harriet intervenes in, and then Minho changes the subject and then it happens all over again. Teresa and Ben are sort of there as extras, not always adding much to the conversation. 

But Newt and Thomas are falling short of their roles in this moment. Newt’s too busy trying not to replay every single moment he can remember from last night over and over in his head. Every time he comes close to thinking of last night, he thinks about his dog's funeral instead. It  _sometimes_ does the trick.

Thomas has his eyes closed and his head leaned back. He could be peacefully sleeping, or dutifully praying. Whatever for, Newt wishes he could know.

“I had a lot of fun.” Teresa says, before the silence can become too awkward. “When else are we going to nearly get arrested for crowd-surfing at a music festival?”

Sonya tosses a magazine over in Newt’s direction. “Are you awake, slinthead? I can’t believe the security guards thought you were on ecstasy!”

Newt forces out a dry laugh. “Can you believe they thought _Ben_ was my brother?”

Ben shrugs his shoulders, his fingers playing with the ends of Sonya’s hair. “Harriet’s right, though. Nothing beats Tequila Tuesdays. This was a really great trip.”

It's weird to be going home and leaving the world they'd created behind. A world with no boundaries or rules or responsibility. They would go back to the Glade and have to get assimilated back in with the real world again - where having sex with your best friend was typically frowned upon.

“So.” Minho cracks a grin. “Where are we going next year?”

.

They sit across the aisle from one another on the plane, as they did on the plane ride coming over. 

Behind them, Teresa and Minho immediately pass out from the in-flight entertainment choices and a cup of wine. In front of them, Harriet’s listening to music as she stares out the window while Sonya and Ben are located closer to the front of the plane, doing whatever they do when they have a private moment to themselves.

They sit across the aisle from one another and Newt thinks they should be talking, even if there’s nothing to talk about. Thomas should be rattling off miscellaneous facts about the Nets or the Jets or the Pets - whatever that baseball team he adored was called. Newt should be telling him about how he thought about changing his major when he got back. Anything, anything.

Just when Newt’s about to lose his mind and do something stupid, like ask Thomas if it ever really meant anything to _him_ , he feels a hand ghost over his. His head snaps up and Thomas is pulling his hand back, but looking at him with a subtle grin. 

A piece of paper is on Newt’s seat tray. 

A piece of paper with a missing sentence - six words, twenty-four letters. Newt looks up at Thomas with raised eyebrows.

Thomas shrugs. “Would you rather watch Kim complain about being rich?”

Newt had been too focused on trying to get Thomas to _talk_ to him that he hadn’t even been paying attention to what was on the in-flight television. “Fair point. Alright. How about ‘A’?”

“One ‘A’.”

“Nice. E?”

“Two ‘E’s.”

“Oh wow, I’m killing it.” It’s easier than Newt thought it would be falling back into this banter, as long as they’re both ignoring the elephant in the room. As long as they’re both pretending everything _can_ be the same after this. 

“Don’t get too hasty. The consonants always stump you.”

“Yeah, yeah let me get through the vowels first. ‘I’ then?”

“Two ‘I’s.”

They go through the motions of the game, Newt correctly guessing the rest of the vowels before getting stumped by the consonants as Thomas predicted.

Thomas watches him almost fondly as he tries to struggle through the remaining words. “Is this even a word?”

“Yes. You’ve heard of it, too.”

“It’s not an American word, is it?”

“It is a word commonly found in the English dictionary by both American and British speakers.”

_Remember when you tried to imitate my accent and I tried to imitate yours?_ Newt wants to ask. But that would be the opposite of going forward and pretending everything could be the same. Thomas has a thing back home. Newt has to stop sleeping with his friends when he’s drunk and lonely.

“If you say so. ’N’?”

“Finally! There’s three ’N’s.”

“Oh wait, _that_ makes more sense now - so the last word is friend then, isn’t it?”

Thomas nods as he scribbles in the letters and it hits Newt - _finally!_ \- what the phrase is. At this point, it wouldn’t take a genius to figure it out.

“Thank you for being my friend too, Tommy.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY, this chapter is finished. i've been working on it since a u g u s t. this is the third rewrite, but i hope you guys liked it. i really do! it's really hard trying to keep the same theme/chemistry from a story you wrote FOUR YEARS AGO AHHHH when you were naive and had NO idea what college/spring break is really like. but i think i am happy enough with this to let it go.
> 
> i'm not complaining because i really love this series and i really love the maze runner and you guys. this is always a pleasure. <3
> 
> again, this is the end of this collection! if you guys want, i'll continue one-shots/prompts of this universe in a NEW story ALL from #NEWT's perspective though. but thank you so much for reading this :) i truly appreciate it yayyyy

**Author's Note:**

> i was planning on going to SLEEP and then posting this tomorrow when i was rested and had time to edit this but then dylan and thomas and ki hong all decided to play with my feelings so i decided to put this out there:) 
> 
> this is for all the kind souls who followed the first story so closely and asked about possibly seeing longer chapters or more chapters or simply chapters from a different POV. i've been wanting to do this for a while but i became very ill this past week and had a little more time on my hands since i wasn't focusing on my own college work. this story is essentially the first story all from newt's POV with some scenes added, some scenes taken away or expanded upon. 
> 
> i haven't exactly figured out how to go forward from here. does it matter if i do chapter by chapter, in the same month by month format? or condense the story so that for every 3 chapters (or so) of the first story, that would be 1 chapter of this? if any of this makes sense, LMK x
> 
> Hope you guys like this. I really liked writing for this universe and I'm happy to come back to it always. if this seems choppy/bad, i'm sorry -- i'm still a little ill and now very much more depressed because of Dylan and Thomas hanging around each other in LA, and Ki Hong posting pics of a "happier, simpler time #tbt." Love uuuuu, pls leave a comment or kudos if u liked this!


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